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But Sandra Bullock had that great salt of the earth Southern tough nosed drawl and sure did help out that nice black fella. Right? Right?

Blanchett got her Oscar for the Aviator. She shouldn't have won that year, but whatever. She deserves an Oscar, just not that one.

Murray is hunting for one and he better get it. He thought he was going to get it for Steve Zissou, but yeah.

Julia Roberts--yes! exactly! There are three grievous errors for which I cannot forgive the Academy: Crash over Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture; Juno over Lars and the Real Girl for Best Original Screenplay; and Julia Roberts over Ellen Burstyn for Best Actress. I went off on a raging monologue about it just the other day! Have you seen Burstyn's performance in Requiem for a Dream? There is NO WAY anyone out-acted her that year. Sweet jeebus, she broke my heart...and then the Academy stomped all over it by snubbing her. Gah.

Thank you for giving me another opportunity to spew my vitriol over the 2000 Oscars. Time to let it go, ya think?

RANDY NEWMAN RANDY NEWMAN RANDY NEWMAN. What? This is a thread about actors? I don't care. RAAAAAAAANDY NEEEEEEEEWMAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!

1999 - Roberto Bernigni won Best Actor for a movie in which he teaches his son that the Nazi concentration camp they are held in is all just a silly game in order to protect the boy's precious young psyche (or something). He then spends the rest of the movie trying to protect his kid from the extra danger he puts himself into thinking this whole thing is a game. Way to go dad. I still can't believe this movie exists, much less someone won an Oscar over it. Not only that, but it turns out Bernigni's character behaves exactly like the real Bernigni, so...acting! Just goes to prove the Holocaust gets the attention of the Academy every time.

THE WORST

Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves > Francis McDormand in Fargo.

I love Shakespeare in Love, and I love Gwyneth Paltrow in it. I still don't understand why people are so incredibly up in arms about this. I thought Elizabeth was good, but I guess I don't find it to be the absolutely brilliant movie that so many of my peers do.

Whenever people start bitching and moaning about Shakespeare in Love and Gwyneth Paltrow winning over Elizabeth and Kate Blanchett I just end up thinking about how true it is that drama is held in much higher esteem amongst intellectual circles than is comedy. Shakespeare in Love is the one comedy to win Best Picture in recent memory and people gripe about it constantly, and I have yet to hear any really convincing reasons.

I also thought Shakespeare in Love was an entertaining film and Paltrow was excellent in it. She's good in almost everything she's been in actually even if you don't want her as your best friend. I loved Kathy Bates in Misery too.

Ellen Burstyn was robbed the year Roberts won though. I agree with that one.

I'll give you all of those except Kathy Bates.

And the rest of them I can mostly forgive, with the exception of number 1. I don't CARE that Cate Blanchett got a make-up Oscar. I thought her performance in Elizabeth was a masterpiece, and she was ROBBED.

As for one you missed: Marissa Tomei?

is just glad to be in a place where other people know that Jesco, the Dancing Outlaw exists. :)

Since I watched both Jesco and American Movie in the same sitting I feel obligated to give Coven a shout out.

I had to put down my beer and comment.

Two Oscars really get me (in addition to G.D. Julia Roberts and Halle Berry ---REALLY???) and they are both grievous oversights:

Jeremy Irons not getting an Oscar for Dead Ringers.
Russel Crowe not getting one for The Insider.

Both are unforgiveable. But even worse is when they give an "I'm Sorry We Fucked Up" Oscar for some later (not as good) performance, as in Gladiator (decent, but please...) and that Von Bulow movie (again with the decent-but-bitch-please thing)

Also (but with lesser fervor because Tommy Lee Jones was Okaaaay, I guess, but Ralph Feinnes getting ROBBED for Shindler's List.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I hate the Oscars. I loathe them I hate them UGH UGH UGH

Fuck Gwyneth. I can't ever watch Shakespeare in Love again because she's in it and yeah, Cate Blanchett rocked the HELL out of Elizabeth.

By far, the worst Acting Oscar mistake—I still cringe when I think about it. Up against Cate Blanchett’s phenomenal and mesmerizing performance as Queen Elisabeth I, in Elizabeth, it is completely and utterly ludicrous that the Goopster won.

I've gotten into arguments with people on this one. Blanchett got Grand Theft Actored on this one. I liked Shakespeare in Love, but Elizabeth was the much better film that year. Yes, better than Saving Private Ryan, too.

Russell Crowe should have won for The Insider instead of Kevin Spacey for American Beauty.

I haven't even read this article yet, but I have to say this:

REEL BIG FISH REFERENCE IN THE TITLE OMG.

That is all.

Kathy Bates rocks and should not be on this list.

1. Whoever won over TIlda Swinton in Julia. (checks) Why, Sandra Bullock, what a surprise. Yes, Tilda's performance was better than all five of the nominees. Even Helen Mirren in Last Station.

2. Whoever won over TIlda Swinton in I Am Love. (Natalie Portman? Well, OK.)

Joanna Robinson,

For you to keep criticizing Randy Newman without any explanation, as if his name is enough, is below the level of writing of this site.

Your last piece criticizing him consisted of you just posting his picture, without any explanation.
Although I guess you lost the argument with Dustin about whether you could use Microsoft Paint to draw semen dripping from his lips.

Newman has decades of great groundbreaking work addressing numerous social issues with great craft. Dylan, Springsteen etc. have discussed him as inspiration.

Regrettably, it doesn't sell to people like you who lap up an artist like Lady Gaga, who stole her last set piece from the opening credits of "Mork and Mindy."

Therefore, Newman has to go into the family business of film scoring to make a living. His numerous Oscar nominations are most likely out of respect for his solo work, as it is for his film score work.

It is not that you dislike him, it is just that the writing of the site is above hipster bullshit like "hey everybody, I'm making fun of the guy who does songs for those cartoon movies."

Just posting his picture or saying his name for a laugh without any explanation is the mark of the hack I believe you to be.

"his win for Philadelphia the year before was completely deserved".

You do realize, do you not, that he was up against Anthony Hopkins for The Remains of the Day, Daniel Day-Lewis for In the Name of the Father, Laurence Fishburne for What's Love Got to Do With It? and Liam Neeson for Schindler's List that year, right?

Still gonna stick by your assertion that he "completely deserved" it?

1. Adrian Brody (The Pianist) over Daniel Day Lewis (Gangs of New York)

2. Denzel Washington (Training Day) over Bruno Ganz (Downfall)

The losing performances here were two of the best I have EVER seen. And both lost to the more politically correct choices.

1993, Best Supporting Actor:

How does Tommy Lee Jones in the Fugitive (a fine performance, but couldn't a dozen other actors have pulled it off?) defeat Malkovich for In the Line of Fire, Postlethwaite for In the Name of the Father, DiCaprio for What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and, most egregiously, Fiennes for Schindler's List?

Is there a scarier performance in a better film than Ralph Fiennes'?

I know he's a good actor and it's not his fault, but I've kinda hated Tommy Lee Jones ever since.

Oscars and others awards of this nature mean very little to me. I don't do what I do with the mission to ever win one, my life and career would not be incomplete without them, and if I ever did, while it might be nice, I'd have to take it with more than a grain of salt. If anything, examples in this thread only back that argument up.

Many of the winners listed here were undeserving. They won because two or more better choices spit the vote, or they got it as a consolation prize for being screwed out of a more deserving occasion (thus keeping the cycle of screwing someone else more worthy nomination going), or even as a "none of the above" underdog. Someone once told me they voted that way because they couldn't chose between two more worthy candidates and didn't want to be seen favoring one over the other. When I asked if the voting was secret, he replied that it really wasn't. It's one of Hollywood's dirty little secrets and your career can be penalized if someone catches wind of how you vote. Maybe a studio doesn't hire you or a director or actor won't work with you. And while there have always been Oscar outcries over the years it is suggested in more recent years it has become even more of a political and marketing machine than it was when it started.

Again, it's very easy for me to cast aside the value of an award like this not because I'm unlikely to ever win one, but because of the caliber of past recipients over the an increasingly large (and painfully more obvious) group of far more worthy choices.

I have to disagree with Hanks in Forrest Gump. Hanks brought a strength and dignity to that role that a lot of actors would not have. He played it straight and most would have descended into camp.
Also he's a great actor by any definition and does not belong on a list with the likes of Paltrow and Roberts.
Lastly if Hoffman can win an Oscar for playing an autistic man WITH NO EMOTIONS AT ALL then Hanks can win for Gump. Seriously how hard is it to play a guy with no emotions? If playing a stiff wins an Oscar then Gump does too.

HE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE COCKADOODY CAR!

it must be great to have these rock hard opinions re actors/ actresses that are impossible to alter. mirren, streep, etc. are
great. bullock, roberts, etc. are awful. period. end of story.
it really isn't that easy. bullock appears in many bad movies but
it doesn't mean she can't act and she was fine in " blind side ".
paltrow was terrific in " shakespeare in love ", a clever movie
that is hated on this site. it would be nice if one of the reviewers/
list makers were a trifle less predictable, dustin... nothing wrong
with a little intellectual friction as opposed to simply feeding the
fans with what they want to hear.

I does feel great.

Jennifer Hudson's win is the only one worse than Tomei's.

kiki, for anyone who still maintains a sense of faith that such human intangibles like what distinguishes 'good' art from 'bad' or an 'unpopular' opinion from an otherwise universally 'favorable' one, or sharing common definitions of both excellence and obvious crap with the overall majority of society- "shocking" award winners will, and should, always be a part of the human makeup.

Most people would like to think that good taste hasn't eroded so completely as to be regarded as irrelevant, especially within the context of an Awards show that strives to recognize only the best of what it represents. That's why award shows exist, to separate the good from the bad, and thus it is "shocking" when an established and respected award entity or other institution seems to break their own rules.

Examples include ABBA being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; Milli Vanilli & Starland Vocal Band winning 'Best New Artist' Grammys; OJ Simpson being found "innocent" of double homicide and G.W. Bush getting his own library.

The word "shocking" is nowhere near being eradicated from the human vocabulary.

Gwyneth beat out Ellen Burstyn's magnificent performance in "Requiem for a Dream". I didn't really like Julia before, but that particular win put me in the anti-Julia Roberts camp forever.

@Bequafina

Technically, it's a Morrissey reference.

Also, Gwyneth Paltrow can suck a fat one.

Born Yesterday is a great movie with a great lead performance from June Holiday, this is why she got the Oscar that year. But, that movie came out in the '50s so I guess everyone had forgotten about it by the mid-'90s. Forty years is kind a long time to remember every single lead performance ever to hit the screen, and I guess the fact that the film was an adaptation of a wildly successful play slipped out of memory, too. How else could Miro Sorvino's grating-as-subway-steel-on-steel-now-turning- particularaly-sharply performance win her the same award for what was effectively the same character but delivered as a far trashier and never endearing mimic? Oh, my days--she even stole the voice, and then tarnished and drooled it down into something unendurable, again?

June Holiday's Oscar-winning performance is to Mira Sorvino's Oscar-winning performance as Grace Kelly's wedding dress is to Kate Middleton's wedding dress: something kind of cruddy with the faint memory of something far more beautiful from decades long passed.

@Steenie

Yeah, I know, but I prefer to ignore Morrissey because he's kind of a whiny bitch.

Agreement on Paltrow, though here that'd be a given(look, I'm the guy who was disappointed we didn't get to see in the box at the end of Se7en). But that's also a strange case, because both movies suck in their own way. In the case of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, it's a light little frothy thing that's totally forgettable and evaporates as you watch it. (I mean, seriously--and this is the case with many Oscar winners from the 90s on--when was the last time you watched it on purpose? Do any scenes stick out in your memory? Nope.) In the case of ELIZABETH, it's a poorly-written ahistorical mess, even stranger given it's the work of the same man who later did this sort of thing better in THE TUDORS. Its attempts to superimpose this story onto THE GODFATHER is heavy-handed and embarrassing. Its characters are as two-dimensional as a Standee. (THE GOLDEN AGE has all the same flaws but is also incredibly boring, a sin given it has Clive Owen)
But Blanchett does an excellent job nevertheless. So she had the greater challenge. So she wins.

this isn't subjective. these are only opinions that are being
registered. " shawshank vs. gump ", paltrow vs. blanchette ",
" king's speech vs. social network " ... just opinions and most
of those match ups are created by the publicity campaigns
generated by the power brokers in hollywood. maybe it's just as
well because where would sites like this be without the controversy and a forum to vent.... but they are only opinions.
these are movies intended to entertain and inform. there is no
right and wrong.

I'm with William Goldman on this.

(Adventures in the Screen Trade. Everything you need to know is in that book. Instant run-off voting would pretty much reform our American political system AND the Oscars instantly and for the better. But the powers that be in each instance will never let it happen. Too much to lose.)

Could be fun to have a weren't-even-nominated category. I'm thinking Andrew Garfield from this year.

Ellen Burstyn's acting was so amazing in Requiem for a Dream (and she lost to Julia Roberts of all people), that the scene in which she's talking to her son about getting old and "having a place in the sun", the camera is slowly panning off of her. The director admitted later that the camera guy was sobbing while he was film her and let the camera move. THAT is an amazing actor!

I will always and forever hate Julia Roberts (who I can stand in Mystic Pizza and that's pretty much it), the same reason I hate Tom Cruise....it's just them talking!!! They don't transform, they don't change, they don't even gain weight! I'll give Tom Cruise Magnolia, that's it!

I still find it absolutely insane that Leonardo Dicaprio didn't win an Oscar for his performance in The Departed. He didn't even get a nomination (partly because he was phenomenal in two movies that year and partly because the universe doesn't make any sense). Forest Whitaker was good, but anyone would have gotten an Oscar for playing that role.

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