My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ.
Rumor has it that Edmond O'Brien won best supporting actor because a trio of On the Waterfront actors, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden and Rod Steiger, split the vote. Given that O'Brien didn't do anything in The Barefoot Contessa but sweat, all I can say is, "Maybe."
I thought about combining the three of them into a single nomination, ala the Marx Brothers or Laurel & Hardy, but ah to hell with it, as far as I'm concerned, history can repeat itself. You do what you want — me, I'm voting for Toshiro Mifune.
By the way, that Godzilla up there in the middle of the best picture nominees is the original Japanese-language version, Gojira, not the Raymond Burr English-language edit. The former is a somber parable about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Japan's defeat in World War II; the latter, stripped of its subtext, is a hokey Saturday morning B-picture about a monster that stomps Tokyo flat. It wasn't the best picture of the year and it spawned thirty-two (no exaggeration) vastly-inferior sequels, but it's well-worth tracking down.
NOT the Raymond Burr version? If Lt. Tragg had arrested Gojira, then Hamilton Burger ham-fisted his prosecution only to have Perry Mason get Gojira off the hook when he masterfully reveals it was actually the Smog Monster that master-minded the whole thing, it would've gotten my vote.
I will never forget the pure pleasure of seeing Godzilla versus the Smog Monster in the theater. Must have been around 1972 during its U.S. run (according to imdb).
Amazingly, it's unavailable on DVD. There's an old VHS tape going for $134 on Amazon. And apparently somebody wrote an essay about it that you can download for 99 cents.
I think a Criterion Collection restoration is in order ...
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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NOT the Raymond Burr version? If Lt. Tragg had arrested Gojira, then Hamilton Burger ham-fisted his prosecution only to have Perry Mason get Gojira off the hook when he masterfully reveals it was actually the Smog Monster that master-minded the whole thing, it would've gotten my vote.
Works for me anyway
I will never forget the pure pleasure of seeing Godzilla versus the Smog Monster in the theater. Must have been around 1972 during its U.S. run (according to imdb).
Amazingly, it's unavailable on DVD. There's an old VHS tape going for $134 on Amazon. And apparently somebody wrote an essay about it that you can download for 99 cents.
I think a Criterion Collection restoration is in order ...
Ah, brother, the sacrifices we've made for art ...
$134? Heck, they're basically giving it away
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