The same for me. ET had much greater impact on me in the theater, and is more enjoyable to this day (in fact, I've never bothered to see Gandhi again, which should tell you something about what I think of it).
Actually, I think the movies that won *should* have won, because they are a pretty accurate reflection of popular taste. As far as I can see, the psychology of the Academy voting process goes something like this:
(i) Was there a movie about disability, especially one where someone succeeds in spite of their disability? If YES, then vote for it because it'll make you feel that you're a caring sensitive person (even if in your heart of hearts you know it's sentimental schmaltz). If NO, then go to (ii)
(ii) Is there a movie that your partner says is brilliant? If YES, then vote for it because that way you stop them nagging. You may know that it's big-budget candyfloss, but what the heck, the voting's anonymous, so nobody can pin the blame on you. If NO, then got to (iii).
(iii) Was there a movie that made lots of money that didn't rely on toilet humour, and had at least some pretentions of art? Well, you'd better vote for it because there are no more options.
The simple fact is that the Oscars(R) reflect popular taste for good or ill. Sometimes a classic movie is chosen, but most of the time it's something innocuous. E.g. this year's winner is a good exciting movie and will stand the test of time in the way that e.g. Rocky did - i.e. as a wholesome (in the best possible sense of the word) piece of entertainment. However, nobody will convince me that it's artistically superior to e.g. Lost in Translation.
However, why bother fussing? Good movies will stand the test of time regardless of whether they win awards or not. Who remembers now that Citizen Kane didn't win Best Picture? If anyone does, it's only to point out how fallible the Oscars(R) are.
You know, to this day I still don't know what film was better THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION or FORREST GUMP. Everytime I watch SHAWSHANK I think its a crime that it didn't win best picture, then I watch GUMP and I think the Academy got it right. Maybe the ideal there would have been for SHAWSHANK and GUMP to have tied.
By the way, I don't think PULP FICTION is in the same league as either GUMP or SHAWSHANK. Its a cool movie which I enjoy greatly, but it wasn't best picture. It won the oscar that it deserved to win, Best Original Screenplay.
Was Gandhi more popular than ET? American Beauty more popular than The Sixth Sense? Did everyone like A Beautiful Mind oodles more than Fellowship of the Ring? Did Chicago's audience outnumber The Two Tower's by millions? Was Shakespeare in Love embraced by the masses (before the Oscars), far more than Saving Private Ryan? And The English Patient? How much more of a blockbuster was it than Jerry Maguire?
No wonder Seth has (very articulate and intelligent) coniption fits. For many people, the Academy is either too obscure or too populist. There's no middle ground, it seems. Gandhi over ET? Too elite. Titanic over LA Confidential? Too populist. They can't possibly please everybody. All they can do is what they do do: 5000+ individuals filling out their ballots individually, which then get counted. Majority wins. I don't always agree with them, but this year, at least, I agreed with them wholeheartedly!
"Contrast this with my pick for 1939—The Wizard of Oz. Some of the other nominations in the 1940 awards were, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights and the winner Gone with the Wind. And not even nomionated is my favoriate of that great year: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in December of 1937. It failed to win a single Oscar, not even for score or song.
It was awarded a special Oscar at the AMPAS Ceremony in early 1939, after the resulting public and critical outcry.
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1991: Silence of the Lambs (Winner) Beauty and the Beast should have won.
Beauty and the Beast is one of the most singularly over-rated movies I've ever encountered. But that's speaking for my own tastes. It had a great set of songs, but I was aghast at how critics were led by the nose by Disney's PR department into declaring it "the best animated feature of all time". That just proved to me how ignorant modern critics are of animation history to begin with. Beauty and the Beast is a fine film -- a bit on the cartoony side, and a bit glib and a bit compromised for youngsters -- but still a fine film. Is it in the same league with Grave of the Fireflies, Yellow Submarine, Fantasia, Pinocchio and Bambi? Laughably, no. It takes more than great songs to make a great animated film, otherwise The Jungle Book would have won Best Picture in 1967.
Waitaminnit... you mean to say that you think FOTR should have won and ROTK shouldn't have? (scratching my head on this one) Something's fishy in the state of Gondor on this one...
"I don’t think that I’m alone in this assessment."
No, I agree 1000% and I know other people who agree as well. Fellowship should won in 2001. ROTK was deserving, but it was not the best film of 2003.
It seems to me that deserving is about as good as it gets. At least as far as movies and awards go. Once you go past deserving and try to determine which is the best things get awfully hazy. The tighter the focus the more blurred the line becomes.
I'd not be shocked to discover that RotK won partly because FotR didn't.
Vickie, agreed. I guess I always look at the full gambit of movies in a particular year. I always like to look at those films that the Academy has snubbed completely as well. Anyway, it's all opinion isn't it? I mean I find no redeeming value in any of Tarantino's films (and believe me, I've tried) however, on IMDB, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are both listed in the top 250.
Fellowship of the Ring didn't win simply because they made three movies at once, or maybe more accuratly, one movie split into three parts. They wanted to see how the movie ended before they gave it best picture. It would be like giving the oscar to Forrest Gump after only seeing the first third of the movie.
Oh, and personaly, Moulin Rouge is the best movie of 2001, not Fellowship.
The Academy will never get it right the majority of the time as long as they allow all their members to vote on the best picture. Independent voting is the only way you'll see less politics, sentiment, campaigning and favoritism and thus more objective results.
I read your post a couple of times Jay—I’m probably missing something that was written before, but can you explain your meaning of ‘independent voting’?
I should perhaps have stressed that I meant popular *critical* taste. Let's take an example. Ghandi was not as popular as ET, but voters probably took the line that Ghandi was a more 'serious' movie and so should win (I think they were wrong - Ghandi is a worthy subject but a dull, do it by the book production; ET is, along with Belle et la Bete, the best constructed fantasy movie ever made, and I will fight anyone who disagrees ). I would place good money that those voters actually liked ET more.
It's a great shame that the Oscars(R) are so parochial, and almost totally ignore films not in English. Just look at what was available for consideration if Academy members didn't have such problems reading subtitles. I've given the Oscar(R) winner followed by a non-English language movie released that year:
1980: Ordinary People Kagemusha
1981: Chariots of Fire Man of Iron
1982: Gandhi Fitzcarraldo
1983: Terms of Endearment Carmen
1984: Amadeus Sunday in the Country
1985: Out of Africa Ran
1986: Platoon The Sacrifice
1987: The Last Emperor Wings of Desire
1988: Rain Man Pelle the Conqueror
1989: Driving Miss Daisy Cinema Paradiso
1990: Dances with Wolves Cyrano de Bergerac
1991: Silence of the Lambs Double Life of Veronique
1992: Unforgiven The Best Intentions
1993: Schindler's List Three Colours: Blue
1994: Forrest Gump Three Colours: Red
1995: Braveheart Shanghai Triad
1996: The English Patient Eighth Day
1997: Titanic The Taste of Cherry
1998: Shakespeare in Love The Class Trip
1999: American Beauty All About My Mother
2000: Gladiator In The Mood For Love
Now I realise that for some folks Star Wars and LOTR are the crowning achievements of cinema, and they're not going to be persuaded by what I'm about to say. However, in many years I firmly believe that the only really good stuff has been produced by non-American or non-British film makers working on total budgets that wouldn't pay the catering bills on a typical Hollywood commercial product.