Like it or not the Oscars are coming on Sunday.
The annual event might give Hollywood’s biggest stars a chance to wear expensive clothing, but the awards should never be taken seriously as an accurate representation of the best films in any year.
The Academy is a very political beast and the decisions are rarely made for artistic merit. With that in mind, we present a list of Oscar’s biggest blunders to help you curb your expectations for Sunday’s extravaganza.
No Love For Hitchcock Or Kubrick: Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock are universally regarded as two of the finest directors of all time, but not according to the Academy.
Neither auteur took home a best director statue during their illustrious careers.
The only time they were honoured was when Hitchcock got an apologetic career achievement award and Kubrick picked up a special effects statue for 2001. Mel Gibson does have a best director Oscar though. Apparently he’s way better than those guys.
Citizen Kane Ignored: Orson Welles’ masterful debut is routinely labelled “the greatest film ever made,” but it got snubbed on Oscar night in 1941.
The Academy decided to honour John Ford’s forgettable How Green Was My Valley instead. Welles went on to become a legend, but was never even nominated for a little gold dude again.
Scorsese’s Snub Streak: Martin Scorsese may have finally gotten an Oscar for The Departed, but it was only after all of his best work was ignored.
Scorsese had to see Taxi Driver lose best picture to Rocky and lose best director to Robert Redford and Kevin Costner before he finally got any recognition.
The Academy is lucky that guy even showed up in 2007.
Art Carney’s Best Actor Win: Art Carney won the 1974 best actor statue for a movie in which he travelled the country with his cat.
Now, that decision is offensive enough on its own, but it’s even worse when you consider that he beat out Al Pacino for The Godfather Part II, Jack Nicholson for Chinatown, and Dustin Hoffman for Lenny. Those are three of the best actors of their generation giving three of their greatest performances. If he’d beaten even one of them it would have been a travesty. The fact that he beat them all is a tragedy.
Forrest Gump Beats Pulp Fiction: In 1994 this decision seemed to make sense. Today, Pulp Fiction posters still fill dorm room walls and the only time Forrest Gump comes up is when the title is used as a punchline for a joke about the worst representation of the mentally handicapped onscreen. Smooth move Academy.
