TOM JONES

[B-Independent.com]

I finally got around to watching TOM JONES, a movie I've often heard refered to as "the worst movie to ever win best picture."

What startled me the post was how "rudimentary" the film was. A ribald comedy, much fo the movie is handhelp and sloppy, which adds and odd flavor to what transpires on screen. Scenes feel more gruesome then what they should, like the hunt sequence, or more screwball then they should, such as many scenes that play out like an episode of Benny Hill.

Based around a series of misunderstandings, the movie plays out like a Roman comedy, similar to A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. If people actually spoke to one another, much of the story could have been resolved in 10 minutes....but then you wouldn't have had a movie.

Despite it's problems, the movie is completely full of life. The camera movies continuously, teh characters race from scene to scene, Tom himself is a force of nature who thrives on consumption.

The transfer is garbage, pure garbage. The early scenes of the movie are muddy, faded, and scratched to hell. I find it hard to believe that the negative to such a respected picture has been lost and that the only transfer could be made from such a mangled print.

[SEA]

Yeah, I got about half way through this and decided it was pissing me off out of sheer boredom more than it was worth. Are you surprised no one is talking about this "classic"? Not me!
Yaaaawwwnn... :)

[B-Independent.com]

I wouldn't say "surprised," but there really isn't much to talk about. Even my initial thoughts after screening it were sparse.

I do like that the fact that more contemporary critics are no longer calling it the worst movie to win best picture....that honor now seems to go to CRASH.

[SEA]

Yeah, I never understood why Crash won. I did like it marginally more than Tom Jones. :)

[B-Independent.com]

We're at opposite ends on this one....I've yet to finish CRASH.

I'm pretty sure it won for the same reason that SHAKESPEAR IN LOVE beat SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - marketing.

[Sevorin]

Saving Private Ryan has the best action scenes I've ever seen in a WWII movie.

But at its heart the picture is a piece of shit, driven by a "concept" that is fundamentally offensive and smarmy and pompous down to the bone. I don't know any veteran, including myself, who thinks highly of it.

Shakespeare in Love may have struck some viewers as a bucket of anachronistic borscht, but it was undoubtedly the best picture of its year. To me there's not a glimmer of a doubt that it's better written, better acted, more enjoyable, more meaningful, and more re-watchable than Saving Private Ryan.

I cannot understand why you're so sure that "marketing" is the reason it won best picture. If anybody in the film business knows how to "market" a movie -- for bigger box office or for critical kudos or Academy Awards -- it's Steven Spielberg and the people who put out Saving Private Ryan. It lost the Oscar to the better film. It deserved to lose.

[The Professor]

I'm a vet and I liked SPR a lot, and it's even an Army movie...

On the other hand, I agree with you down the line on Shakespeare in Love. A much better picture than SPR, we're just supposed to feel guilty for even considering it.

Lastly, I take back what I said about TGSoE -- Gump is decisively the worst picture ever to win.

[B-Independent.com]

I enjoy Gump and its post-modernist spin on history as filtered through mass media, but it certainly wasn't the best picture that year. Of the film's nominated, I can't help but think that both PULP FICTION or SHAWSHANK were robbed. For the life of me, I can't even recall the other titles nominated.

Why do you think you're suppossed to feel guilty for prefering one film over the other? I doubt Spielberg will show up on your doorstep to chastise you.

[B-Independent.com]

SHAKESPEAR IN LOVE is no better or worse than anyother Shakespeare interprutation, such as 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, or even Baz Lurman's ROMEO AND JULIET.....SIL just cribs from more plays and has a great cast. While I like teh film, I see nothing in it as profound, meaningful, or re-watchable as SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Personally, I find RYAN's meditation on the value of life far deeper than LOVE's celebration of love.

As for the value of the movie and vet's responses, I'd be more than willing to go down to teh VFW to tape some thoughts, more merely just my family who are all career military going back to WW2. While you've never stumbled across a vet that thinks much of it, I've never met a vet who doesn't like it, most even respond physically to it being reduced to tears upon their initial viewing. Granted, I've never opened any dialogs with them regarding the 2nd and 3rd acts of the film, but I doubt they would hold back their tears for 2 hours after the Normandy invasion until the final credits.

As for the "marketing" comment, Miramax's Oscar campaign for SHAKESPEAR is now ledgendary and has been the model for many of the campaigns since, including CRASH. If Entertainment Weekly and Premiere have their old issues online, you should seek out their articles that detail how agressively, and intelligently, Harvey and company wrestled the award away from Dreamworks. There should also be a brief article in EW on how CRASH bested the superior competition.

[Sevorin]

Are you saying that the Academy members who voted for Shakespeare in Love only did so because Miramax's ingenious and aggressive campaign deluded them into believing it was better than Saving Private Ryan?

If so, you must believe the general level of stupidity among Academy members is legendary. And since a significant plurality of them is made up of actors -- the very profession highlighted and glamorized in Shakespeare in Love -- it makes perfect sense that you would further believe that SIL had an unfair electoral advantage over SPR.

If you prefer to believe this urban legend, or choose to swallow the shit that's dished up in EW, there's little left to talk about. But is it likely that Harvey Weinstein, as powerful as he was in 1999, could have "wrestled" the Oscar away from three of the most dangerous young lions in Hollywood history? Was Dreamworks really at a disadvantage on this playing field?

I had the benefit of knowing some of the Academy voters who went for Shakespeare in Love. As it happens, two of them were veterans of the ETO. Those voters weren't barrel-rolled into anything. I've disagreed with other choices they've made, but their votes came honestly, based upon what they themselves genuinely believed.

I have often objected to Oscar choices -- and Crash is certainly one of them -- but I believe the Academy was right on the money in voting SIL the best film of 1998. Obviously you think otherwise. But it's asinine to suggest that Saving Private Ryan was so decisively the best film that only sophisticated hard-ass tactics and outright corruption could have kept it from winning the best picture award.

I've admitted that the action scenes in SPR are the best I've ever seen for a WWII film. The problem is that the picture is more than that. It does have an act 2 and an act 3, along with a coda that I personally find insulting to vets. And I'm not alone in reacting to that insult.

The movie includes a great final action sequence -- and for that sequence and the first reel landing at Omaha Beach I'll always find something worthwhile about SPR. But even you acknowledge that you've "never opened any dialogs" about acts 2 and 3. It is precisely there that the problems arise.

The essence of the difference in quality between the two films is to be found in their screenplays. SPR had the benefit of the Great Entertainer himself behind the camera, and the Academy rewarded him. But his script was pompous and phony, whereas SIL's screenplay was as bright and hard as a fresh-cut diamond. It, too, was rewarded by the Academy -- and rightly so.

All the SPR acolytes should grow up and face the simple truth: The depth and charm of SIL's great screenplay, played out by a wonderful cast and competent direction, completely trumped mere visual excellence and the excruciating pomposity of SPR's self-important theme.

More than once the Oscar has gone to the wrong recipient. I respect your opinion that SPR should have won the 1998 best picture award. I disagree profoundly and irrevocably, but I respect your opinion. But only a psychopathic case of sour-grapes could induce the belief that SIL's selection arose from anything other than the good faith -- (and, I might add, the good taste) -- of the Academy voters.

[B-Independent.com]

But only a psychopathic case of sour-grapes

first off, you thrown another insult at another board member and I'll throw you off. Flames will not be tolerated.

Secondly, yes, I do believe the Academy was duped. Not sour grapes at all, but a belief based upon Miramax's ruthless media saturation that out-gunned Dreamwork's. Pure and simple.

[Pihk]

you thrown another insult at another board member

Allen, you might as well ask Sevorin to stop breathing.

Would you ask a snake to stop hissing? A pig to curtail its mud/feces rolling activities?? Its a strikingly similar concept with Sevorin.

[Sevorin]

"Ruthless media saturation"? Dreamworks was "outgunned" by someone with more money? The "Academy was duped"?

All this analysis is "pure and simple"?

I presume for such accusations you have something called evidence.

To paraphrase old Doolittle: I'm waiting to read it, I'm wanting to read it, I'm willing to read it.

Very well, sir. You have the floor. Produce your evidence.