As an avid film fan, these are my picks for the worst decisions ever made at the Oscars. What did I miss?
"How Green Was My Valley" Beating "Citizen Kane" For Best Picture (1941)
"Don't believe everything you hear on the radio." A fitting quote from the movie that "changed all other movies," considering how Orson Wells's wonderful "War of the Worlds" radio stunt in 1938 spooked half of America. I don't know too much about the inaccurate, saccharine "How Green Was my Family Valley," but one thing I do know, as a proud Welshman, is that this is decidedly not Wales. None of the actors are Welsh, and it certainly wasn't filmed in Wales! But I digress. The point here is that this beat out "Citizen Kane." "Citizen Kane!"
"Rocky" Winning Best Picture (1976)
The edgy and down-to-earth Stallone script was a breath of fresh air at the time, and Stallone is to be admired for hanging in there (when producers Irwin Wrinkler and Robert Chartoff offered him $350,000 for the film rights, with only $106 in his bank account, Stallone refused unless he was the star of the movie). Which, fine, but is this a better movie than "Taxi Driver," or even "All the President's Men"? (There seems to be a Redford, De Niro theme running through this post).
Scorsese wasn't even nominated for Best Director.
"Kramer Vs. Kramer" Vs. "Apocalypse Now" (1979)
Oh, how I became a man in the back row of my local movie theater in 1980, wiping away the odd tear on my girlfriend's blouse. I marveled at Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep's emotional performances, and yes Hoffman deservedly won the Best Actor Oscar.
But hold on one minute, what other movies were nominated that year? Just a little film called "Apocalypse Now," probably the most powerful, fucked up experience of the year.
Sure, the tear-jerking bubble gum pop of "Kramer Vs. Kramer" did deserve some acting gongs, but BEST DIRECTOR, in the year that Coppola produced "Apocalypse Now"? As Kurtz himself would say, "The Horror .... the horror."
"Raging Bull" Not Winning Best Picture (1980)
How could the greatest sporting film in cinema history be beaten by the schmaltzy over-rated soap opera that was Robert Redford's "Ordinary People"? Granted, De Niro most deservedly won the Best Actor, but Robert Redford as best director? Yikes.
