Sunday, March 25, 2018

Alternate Oscars: Vote For The Best Picture of 1942 (Revised)

Alternate Oscar guru Erik Beck of the Boston Becks writes "Thought you would include Casablanca here since it was released in November of 1942 though it didn't get an Oscar eligible L.A. release until February of 1943.

But where, where, where, where is Sullivan's Travels, my number one film of the year? How is it not here?"

He makes a good point. I have been placing movies in the year of their release rather than Oscar eligibility to avoid a situation where, say, 1953's Tokyo Story winds up competing for best picture in 1972 simply because nobody in Japan thought American audiences would cotton to Ozu. But for voting purposes, Casablanca works so much better in 1943 than 1942.

Then I got to thinking why not do a hybrid, with American films competing in their year of Oscar eligibility and foreign (including British) films competing in the year of release in their home countries.

I know, you don't care.

But here, in case you do, is a revised poll for 1942. Eventually, when I transfer these polls to their permanent pages, I'll revise polls for 1933, 1934, 1936, 1937 and 1941 as well.

7 comments:

Eric S Beck said...

Not to be that annoying guy but then shouldn't really In Which We Serve be listed here? It's got to be a better choice than or Mrs. Miniver (in spite of the Oscar).

Eric S Beck said...

Sorry, somehow Talk of the Town got eaten in my last comment with bad HTML tagging.

Mythical Monkey said...

I left this comment on the wrong post:

I sort of arrived at my list of nominees by blending together several lists -- yours, one from a site called Top Movies (https://topmovies.wordpress.com/), a guy named Robert Horton's annual top ten lists (https://roberthorton.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/1942-ten-best-movies/), my own Kate-Bar-The-Door Awards, imdb's top vote getters and imdb's top rated films for a given year. Movies that make all the lists are in, and then it gets a bit trickier from there. It's a way of sort through my own biases.

The imdb isn't going to be much use for films from the last 25 years or so, by the way. For films from, say, the 1950s, there's a strong correlation between number of votes and quality of the movies -- people are seeking out movies based on reputation. But for more recent movies, the number of votes is based mostly on studio marketing campaigns. So the latest unwatable Transformers will have ten times as many votes as an Oscar-worthy film.

But I'll cross that bridge if I ever reach it ...

mister muleboy said...

No clear fave here; the votes are spread far and wide [like yers truly]. I feel that this reflects your biases, so I am voting here for Spielberg's "1941" as best picture of 1942.

This is how my brain operates

Mythical Monkey said...

so I am voting here for Spielberg's "1941" as best picture of 1942

And you can vote for The Summer of '42 in 1943!

Uncle Tom said...

"I know, you don't care."

I DO care - passionately - Sonny Jim, because I want to meet Susan. I love her....she's my symbol.

Mythical Monkey said...

You mean that posh bird who gets everything wrong? The lads frequently sit round the television and watch her for a giggle.