WORST of the Best Picture Oscar Noms (Only the '00s Edition ... except 2009)

Seabiscuit got nominated for Best Picture?

haven't seen a bunch of these and I gather the Crash pick is widely derided but surely this has to be Gladiator

This really should've have been a poll of the SECOND worst among the nominees. I expect a landslide for number one.

If I ignore the big dull prestige pictures, I come up witht these finalists/stinkers:

A Beautiful Mind
Little Miss Sunshine
The Hours
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

torn btwn little miss sunshine / slumdog / crash / juno

Crash is in its own category of dreadful.

Benjamin Butthole is my easy choice for second worst. What a dumb piece of shit.

and long

This really should've have been a poll of the SECOND worst among the nominees. I expect a landslide for number one.

I can only hope, but there are so many horrific, moronic pics in this mix that I anticipate a race.

xpost Yeah BB would be my pick. "A Beautiful Mind" is laughably bad too

there are so many horrific, moronic pics in this mix that I anticipate a race.

That's what I said about the GOP primaries in '15.

I remember Juno being well-acted and reasonably well-observed, not exactly Best Picture but a decent little film and worlds better than others of its ilk. Versus the 80s list, I actually don't mind a lot of the Oscar bait here, which tends to at least be a little livelier and more vivid. It's the way of the future - way of the future.

Don't think I saw Finding Neverland. That can't be any good, right?

Upholstered prestige crap, inoffensive.

That's what I said about the GOP primaries in '15.

The parallels between how that race went down and how this one will are staggering.

which film is Hilz and which Trump?

These are all bad or worse:

Chocolat
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind
In the Bedroom
The Hours
Seabiscuit
Finding Neverland
Ray
Sideways
Capote
Crash
Babel
Little Miss Sunshine
Juno
Frost/Nixon
The Reader

Also, I haven't managed to stay awake for the entirety of a single LotR movie, and managed to stay awake through all of the above.

Gangs of New York and The Departed are pretty bad but are partially saved by good moments and/or performances.
I only remember Master and Commander being deadly dull.
Atonement was really bad despite good source material.
I hated everything about Mystic River so it gets my vote.
(I haven't seen some of these, including Crash).

Was Gosford Park as boring as I remember it being?

the LOTR films are fine at what they do and I've never minded them.

I loved Ray at the time.

Gosford Park is fun! Real bitchy too.

I might re-watch. The Departed is too much Nicholson having nasty fun to be the worst of these IIRC though I can see what there is to dislike about it

most of the bad ones of these i know are gonna be bad so i haven't watched them

xpost -- it was the most I've ever liked Mark Wahlberg, though possibly the least I've ever liked Damon and DiCaprio.

I've seen so few of these, and some of them so long ago I can't remember a thing, that this currently is a three-way race between Sideways, Babel and The Reader. I suspect if I'd seen Crash this wouldn't be hard at all, and also suspect those three might actually be in the top half. I do kinda hate all three of them.

Gosford is great, a relatively minor Altman but maybe my second favorite of the ones I've seen from this list (after the mysteriously-maligned There Will Be Blood).

Crash should've been titled Paving the Road to Hell.

the mysteriously-maligned There Will Be Blood

?!

Well, on this board, anyway.

The Departed is a blast. We can argue forever about whether its Oscar material or not, but its so much more watchable than the bulk of this list that it shouldn't even be in contention here.

So much dreck here, much of which has faded from memory for me (did I even see The Hours? I honestly can't remember now). Voting Slumdog Millionaire only because I was forced to watch it again recently for a class.

We should make a list of films that are both high prestige Oscar bait and enjoyably watchable movies that hold up past awards season. Feel like it would be a pretty short list.

A few I got nothing out of: A Beautiful Mind, The Aviator, Munich, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire. There are a bunch more where I got almost nothing, but there was usually a performance or something that slightly redeemed the film. I'll give Munich a pass because I've been meaning to see it again, and I don't want ILX's wrath descending down upon me. Anyway, Gangs of New York easily in terms of the ambition-achievement gap. Haven't seen 19 of them, including all the Lord of the Rings films.

At worst, the LOTR films are beautiful wallpaper.

never gonna run out of Oscar polls huh

Well, on this board, anyway.

I mean, even on this board: 2007's Oscar Nominees

We should make a list of films that are both high prestige Oscar bait and enjoyably watchable movies that hold up past awards season. Feel like it would be a pretty short list

From this list:

Erin Brockovich
Gosford Park
The Departed
Lost in Translation
Munich
LOTR
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

i haven't seen 14 of these candidates and will die happy avoiding at least 10 henceforth

(xpost) Lost in Translation? I guess with Murray to an extent, but was Coppola all that well known before that?

LIT had buzz months in advance of its opening, if I remember correctly. And Murray was one of the award frontrunners. I like it fine, she did better before and afterward.

I had a real problem with its ''oh, this inscrutable Oriental backdrop!" premise and execution, even if part of the idea was that ScarJo's character was going through the motions of that narrative (package tea ceremony experience etc.) and finding it hollow. End of the day, it's The East as sounding board and metaphor for anomie and human disconnection which is pretty dopey.

It's at least partially mitigated by her and Murray's spending so much time in the hotel, which could be any anonymous luxury Hilton anywhere in the world.

it's funny how few of these movies are conducive to multiple viewings, which obviously goes hand in hand with their "prestige" nature. Erin Brockovich jumps out as one, but maybe it's just on TV more than most of the others.

Erin Brockovich j is a much better movie than Traffic: aware of the intersections of gender and class, sharp eye for interior design, excellent cast.

title should've been Julia's Smile Cures Social Ills

Also how bad was Little Miss Sunshine? I remember thinking the characters were pretty charming fuck-ups with heart kind of thing but haven't re-watched for years

as funny as a 2x4

Erin Brockovich is a much better movie than Traffic: aware of the intersections of gender and class, sharp eye for interior design, excellent cast.

This.

Kael would've been in its corner.

oh, HER

http://33.media.tumblr.com/f773e8ed87bc871bdeb8d949a484da14/tumblr_moqyzar0BM1rsw1oio1_400.gif

David Denby wrote an encomium to her bosom

https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2017/06/07/we-lost-it-at-the-movies/

gotta be crash, but don't underestimated the insipid babel

other possibilities: the reader, benjamin button, finding neverland

Love in Translation is just so well made. Every image, every sound, the acting. A great, great film. And I'm not sure Coppola has done anything even slightly as good, but I'm willing to find out.

A Beautiful Mind

With Crash, at least Terrence Howard and Matt Dillon were really strong,

Erin Brockovich j is actually one of my least favorites of the erin brockovich anime sequels, ahead of only Erin Brockovich 2Rz Wing and Erin Brockovich j-ReSquared W

pretty easy, it's Good Night, and Good Luck. George Clooney passion project is already a non-starter, but man this was insufferable. I remember it came out a year after Bush was reelected and it was just the most anodyne, toothless indictment of cable news. and he was horrible as ERM

well, David Strathairn played Murrow

Clooney was great as David Strathairn, but terrible as Murrow.

lol whoops this is like when I thought William H. Macy was in The Clearing. movie was still shit

loads of garbage here but tbh kinda wanna vote for Fellowship of the Ring

good move. i would've voted for one of the LOTRs but didn't want to split the vote

would also accept Gosford Park, No Country, Lost in Translation, maybe a couple others. The Departed is fun but p stupid/pointless

lol wait we're voting for WORST whoops my bad - reverse all that!

I avoided most of these movies surely CRASH is the worst of the ones I've seen tho

why the hell did Master and Commander end up with that run-on title? It sounds more like the third video game in a series than a feature film

loads of garbage here but tbh kinda wanna vote for Fellowship of the Ring

― Οὖτις, Monday, July 10, 2017 5:35 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

good move. i would've voted for one of the LOTRs but didn't want to split the vote

― flappy bird, Monday, July 10, 2017 5:36 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Same as Flappy but I'll join Shakey in voting FotR. That ring garbage is detestable.

I have never seen Crash but its only redeeming aspect, to me, is the number of people who searched it out and accidentally ended up with the Cronenberg movie

xxp i think it was 3 of the books compressed into one movie. i was in 5th grade when it came out and my history teacher was so hyped on it, had the poster in his classroom and everything. p sure we watched maybe the first 30 minutes in class one day.

Yeah, there may have been some idea of starting a Master & Commander franchise because there's something like 482 books in the series.

the first LOTR is fantastic, 2nd is p good, the 3rd (and Oscar winning one) is ok but botches the ending(s)

it needed another five to ten endings, just to really end the series

The Queen <- Haven't seen too many of these but god this fucking sucked.

I crack up thinking about the rat on the windowsill at the end of The Departed far too often.

Yeah, there may have been some idea of starting a Master & Commander franchise because there's something like 482 books in the series.

― Duane Quarterdump (Old Lunch), Monday, July 10, 2017 1:48 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that was the intention, and my history teacher was SO excited about it and SO bummed when it obviously wasn't going to happen.

What kind of dirt on the nominators does Scorsese have that nearly every one of his films gets nominated

flappy making me justifiably feel old, here

yet Silence wasn't!

Academy compensating for ignoring Scorsese for many years now that his movies made money at box office

I crack up thinking about the rat on the windowsill at the end of The Departed far too often.

Really good bit this, and the camera is looking through the window at the city hall

What kind of dirt on the nominators does Scorsese have that nearly every one of his films gets nominated

― mh, Monday, July 10, 2017 1:51 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

clearly not enough since it took him until 2007 to win best director.

and yeah Silence imo is his best of the century so far, it's not even close. incredible movie that got passed over and ignored

I have never seen Crash but its only redeeming aspect, to me, is the number of people who searched it out and accidentally ended up with the Cronenberg movie

Clearly the title is cursed, as the Cronenberg is one of the only movies I've ever walked out of (and I'm a fan of his work generally; this one and Spider are the only ones I disavow).

the first LOTR is fantastic, 2nd is p good, the 3rd (and Oscar winning one) is ok but botches the ending(s)

I saw one of these in the cinema, I think it was the first one - that's the one with Gollum isn't it? I found it very boring but in a peculiar sort of way, it didn't annoy me or send me to sleep it just sort of rolled relentlessly on and on and on in a completely unengaging way.

I love Siskel & Ebert arguing over Cronenberg's Crash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZBJGdWrsoI

that's the one with Gollum isn't it?

no, it isn't

What's the one with Gollum?

That's a great clip :) xxp

I thought Fellowship of the Ring was the first one. Carry on.

Fellowship is the first one. Gollum is in 2 Towers and ROTK

man, do I ever miss Siskel and Ebert arguing

He's in all of them!

he is in one shot in the first movie

Crash is probably going to win this, but "A Beautiful Mind" is so much worse. (I think, it's not like I'm going to rewatch to make sure).

around 2000 Marty finally started to make AMPAS' kind of movie: slick shit

xp Akiva Goldsman is such a hack writer

Siskel and Ebert are v fun to watch even when neither of them is saying anything particularly insightful. Ebert is right about what Cronenberg (and to a greater, more successful extent, Ballard) were trying to do, but he's wrong about the movie succeeding imo

xp

for sure

A thousand percent with Siskel there. "Because it's too tough for them to take"--just the silliest possible thing you can say, above and beyond the fact it's always a bad idea to try to tell someone why they didn't like something. I could take Crash, just found it laughably solemn. (Tried to imagine an SCTV remake in something I tacked onto a year-end music ballot that year.)

i remember Master & Commander as being both an excellent movie (best old timey boat movie of the past couple decades at least!) and the movie that broke nabisco's brain.

the scorsese movies here i'd rank departed >>> aviator >>> GoNY. going from excellent to "it has its awe-inspiring moments."

Munich and LOTR are both awesome though the former has some poorly executed bits.

the one from this list i thought was surprisingly good was Michael Clayton.

I'd vote for Gladiator here, though. it's not just pretty bad, but kind of pointless and tedious.

are you saying that you were not... amused

lolling so hard at that Siskel/Ebert debate. I at least finished Crash, although it was terrible. I gave up trying to watch Fellowship of the Ring. Three hours of epic journey, battle, epic journey, battle, epic journey... yeah, I really need a four hour Blu-Ray extended version of that.

you left out all the yammering

would love to see a spinoff about a hobbit brothel done in the style of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

I crack up thinking about the rat on the windowsill at the end of The Departed far too often.

― devvvine, Monday, July 10, 2017 12:50 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always kinda wish there'd been a flashing subtitle that said 'RAT EQUALS SYMBOLISM FOR CORRUPTION'.

lmao holy shit

I hope that's in the closed captions

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/8f/4c/4c/8f4c4cd0cd1bd3fcc7a74dc60f021af3.jpg

(Huh...did Dolenz always play Cagney like he was having an epileptic fit?)

His performances were usually so subtle and restrained too.

I've never seen so many people walk out midmovie as I did during Cronenberg's Crash.

Same here

this has to be crash

https://youtu.be/Mn9AYyjS_Es?t=15

never 4get

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laI3WFQwyHk

I hate little miss sunshine but for me this absolutely has to be Chicago

otm

I’ve never seen the movie version, but I saw the musical with my family on a weekend matinee and an alternate took the lead. But said alternate was Sandy Duncan.

I also picked Chicago - I'm handicapped in that no-one pays me to see films, so I have missed ~50% if these, including obviously Crash.

Either Ray or Crash. I suppose Ray let Walk Hard happen which is a plus.

I thought Chicago was OK. Very retro and it pales next to Cabaret, but it kept me entertained.

I take it I'm the only person who hates Moulin Rouge like boiling acid being poured in my ears and eyes.

I'm not a fan but I don't care enough.

I admire it very much. But it gives me headaches, so I don't watch it.

Yeah, that's more or less my take. I admire its serious commitment to foolishness.

it's a monument to ADD, someone said

p sure i loathed Crash and Slumdog most, with the very dishonest Frost/Nixon close behind

of the ones I've seen, these are the ones I dislike the most:

Moulin Rouge! - interesting setup that eventually just tested my patience and made me wish they'd cast people who could sing as the leads
The Hours - while notable for having the only Julianne Moore performance I can tolerate, it's still dull and deep in the way a 13yo who just found out about Bauhaus is deep
Mystic River - I solved the whodunnit about 5 seconds after the murder happened and spent the rest of the movie irritated by the dummies onscreen who couldn't figure it out
Babel - I had high hopes for this but it made zero impact on me at all; I barely remember seeing it

I probably actually dislike The Hours more but I'm voting Mystic River because I was in the chorus that recorded the barely-inaudible "oooh-ahhhh" bits in the soundtrack and it is eternally frustrating to me that my voice is buried deep in the mix of this dumb-ass movie.

Beside forcing Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf to lie in the grass covered in snails to commune with snails, The Hours also had Ed Harris his first official terrible performance.

Babel is classic Oscarbuzz crap that vanishes the moment its moment does. But it's Innaritu's least memorable film, which is a plus.

Can't hate on Slumdog. It at least has Anthony Dod Mantle shooting the shit out of it, which is more than can be said for almost every one of these.

And, in one memorable scene, shooting shit.

And that is the best scene. It's still weird that a film with a triumphant scene where a kid swims through excrement won the Oscar as a feel good film.

a metaphor for that year in Oscar

If only there had been 10 nominees!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

As many awful movies as there are here ... Crash.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Would be interested in hearing from the two Lost in Translation voters (understanding and conceding the most common complaint against it).

I think Crouching Tiger is my favourite here.

I broke this down for y'all.

I like more of the films in Good to Great and Meh each than 'Solid Sound Entertainments', which strikes me as about right.

Sorry for mangling your categories.

which films?

Moulin Rouge / Juno / District 19
Up / Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Lost in Translation / No Country for Old Men / A Serious Man

I am a mark for 'We have some ideas, and some of them are bad!' which I think covers the first three. (but really my percentage watched across all categories is <50)