The announcement of the Oscar nominees reminds me of the big, useless project that I started a long time ago called Solonor’s Oscar Do-Overs. This is the one where I set up a poll for every year from 1927 onward to let you vote on who the real Best Picture should have been. (I’ve only made it up to 1956, so far.)
The criteria for inclusion on the list are:
- Best Picture winner
- Best Picture nominee
- IMDb Top 250 entry
- Jeems 100 entry
- Box Office Top 10 with at least as good an average IMDb rating as the worst Academy nominee
- Top 10 in IMDb total votes with at least as good an average rating as the worst Academy nominee (min. 1000 votes)
Go ahead and vote on the existing years, but I was wondering who you would vote for in this year’s crop. Here are the ones that would be on the 2004 list:
Real Nominees (IMDb rating)
The Aviator (7.8)
Finding Neverland (8.2)
Million Dollar Baby (8.3)
Ray (8.0)
Sideways (8.2)
IMDb Top 250 (Ranking)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (#32)
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (#95)
The Incredibles (#113)
Before Sunset (#120)
Garden State (#171)
[ “Sideways” is #214, “Finding Neverland” #217 ]
Diarios de motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries) (#237)
Box Office Top 10 (IMDb Rating)
Spider-Man 2 (7.9)
[ “Shrek 2” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” just missed with 7.7 ratings ]
Top 10 IMDb Vote Getters (IMDb Rating)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (7.9)
Garden State has my vote for Best Picture.
I’m not a movie person, and although I did mean to see Finding Neverland, well, I haven’t seen any of the movies that are up for nomination, not any of the movies that the actor/actresses are all nominated for. I saw Spiderman, Harry Potter and Hero. All year. Oh wait – I took my niece to see Spongebob! Yes, sad, I know. So I’m recusing myself from the vote.
But I did want to know if anyone else found it somewhat bizarre that Lowell from the sitcom “Wings” was nominated for supporting actor.
I’ll at least watch to see if Jamie Foxx can nab both awards 🙂
The only one on your list that I’ve seen is Spider Man 2, so I’m not qualified to judge them, either.
I, too, did see SpongeBob, and while it was going along quite nicely, near the end we had a David Hasselhoff appearance that tends to send the movie in a direction that is not necessarily where it should go. Or something like that.
Even though I haven’t seen any of the nominees, I’ve read the reviews on all of them, so I’ll predict Sideways to win best picture. And yes, I’ll be watching the awards, which is really quite silly seeing as I haven’t seen any of the performances that are up for the awards. Is Billy Crystal hosting again, hopefully?
I’m still hung up on Good Will Hunting.
Robin Williams as a shrink- I need couch time.