Completely Off Topic RANT

[TeaSea]

I figure each of us is allowed an OT Rant....so here's mine.....

I saw Saving Private Ryan last night in HD on one of the Turner channels. So here's my rant:

Private Ryan was nominated as Best Picture in 1998 for the 71st Academy Awards (Oscars). BTW, these were actually listed in 1999.

Do you remember what won best picture that year?
Do you?
Does anyone?
Has anyone watched it since?


For the record, Private Ryan is one of the few movies where I saw grown men as well as women leave the theater in tears. It's shown repeatedly throughout the year. As a genre, it has the most brutal and well choreographed battle scenes of that type, depicting the absolute desperation, hate, futility, gross disgust, adrenaline, and high of combat. It is sympathetic towards both the victor and the loser.

So, what was the movie that beat it out?






Give up?
























Shakespeare in Love!

Let me repeat that....SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE!!





Don't get me wrong. I saw it, enjoyed it, thought it was cute.

BUT.....it was not Private Ryan. I've not given a hoot about the Oscars since.

Okay, I'm done.

[TARPSBird]

What movies and which actors/actresses win the Oscars is as unpredictable as who gets voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the Oscars I'm sure there is a lot of behind-the-scenes arm twisting and sucking up involved. Nowadays the movie-going public seems more interested in superficial romance stories, buddy comedies and sci-fi mayhem and destruction, than in quality films with substance and historical significance. Betcha for every one person who saw the Redford-directed movie The Conspirator there are ten or more who've already seen The Hangover Part II.

[kilo delta]

Saving Private Ryan was on in HD on UK tv recently too...last week maybe? Hard to believe that it's out 13 years now!
I know a lot of guys who were extras in the movie,in particular the beach scenes,as it involved the Irish Army reservists.






Btw...I've never seen Shakespeare in Love!

[AndyG43]

Has anyone watched it since?

Sorry TeaSea, but I watched it this weekend as part of my (weather enforced) Shakespeare DVD marathon.

To be fair, I'm about to embark on my umpteenth rewatching of Band of Brothers, so may start that with Private Ryan for the sake of completeness.

Edit - No, I'm not gay, even though I do enjoy a good musical on occasion!!!

[OBIO]

When Deb spends the night with one of her sisters or her mom or is out with them during the day, I get to watch Man Movies at loud volume. Saving Private Ryan is one of my favorites, along with We Were Soldiers, Platoon, Casualties of War, Tora Tora Tora, Flyboys (I know...not very accurate, but it's the only WW1 air warfare movie I have). I have watched these movies dozens, maybe even hundreds of times each, and can watch them again an equal number of times and still enjoy them just as much as the first time I watched them.

Shakespeare in Love......have never watched it and have no real desire to do so.

OBIO

[Cazzie]

I would get out of hand if I told you why movies like Shakespeare In Love won, but if you know Hollyweird and the acting profession in general, you know exactly what I am speaking of.

Caz

[AckAck]

There may be a perspective issue at play here...

I would imagine that if you were on a scrapbooking, knitting, quilting, weaving or pole-dancing forum, the conversation might be reversed, especially if "Saving Private Ryan" had won.

I can imagine a conversation along the lines of, "How could the WAR movie have won? It was so gritty and loud, and everybody died, and the camera work was so jittery. "Shakespeare in Love" had everything going for it - romance, drama, humor, intrigue, tragedy, cross-dressing... I can hardly wait to watch it again with my husband. He's always watching those loud movies when I go out with the girls, so I have to give him a little culture when he's with me."

That being said, this is a predominantly guys forum, and Private Ryan was robbed. :mixedsmi:

Brian

(maybe not the pole-dancing forum)

[AndyG43]

OK, better answer after a bit of time for research. Private Ryan scooped several awards, including a deserved 2nd Oscar for Spielberg - his first, and long overdue in my opinion, was for Schindlers List.

The two major ones it missed out on were Best Picture and Best Actor; and it is the latter award which may go some way to explaining why other films got the nod. This was Tom Hanks third nomination in 5 years; he had (deservedly) won the Oscar in '93 for Philadelphia, then scooped the same award the following year for Forrest Gump - and that was a far from deserved win, when the likes of Morgan Freeman and Nigel Hawthorne were giving us the best performances of their careers.

It's no great secret that there is a lot of back room politics in these awards; and after the award for Forrest Gump, which came in for a lot of flak, many felt Tom Hanks needed to be pegged back slightly. Luckily for them there was a stand out performance that year for Best Actor, Robert Begnini, so that Oscar was fairly uncontroversial; but to have given Best Picture to Private Ryan, while ignoring the central performance of Mr Hanks, just wasn't going to be a runner. So, ultimately, politics cost it the award.

To be honest, if any film was robbed that year, it was Elizabeth which was far far better than Shakespeare in Love and probably better than Private Ryan too - although I am a bit of a student of Tudor history, so have to admit to a certain partiality. The upside to the whole thing was Spielberg and Hanks' decision to look at exploring the story in more depth, which gave us Band of Brothers and The Pacific.

[b52bob]

I have to say that Saving Private Ryan was the most accurate, terror filled, accurate description of the horrors of war that has ever made. The landing at D day is difficult to watch. Hard to imagine anyone living though that.

On another note, saw Super 8 yesterday and can really recommend it. It's a mixture of ET, Close Encounters, and The Goonies but an entirely original story. The best film so far this year.

[Trans_23]

Btw...I've never seen Shakespeare in Love!

I had never heard of it until today. Agree with Obio. When I get a block of a few hours without the wife and kids, a movie goes in (many of the same he listed) and the sound goes up. Ever listen to the two shuttles taking of together in "Armageddon" with the surround sound cranked up? It will rattle the windows. I am sure my neighbors enjoy it also. :applause:

[TeaSea]

I did see "The King's Speech" and thought it was great. It won this year so maybe the Oscar's aren't a total loss....

I do however think there's something against Spielberg going on.

[robert41]

I do not watch much tv or movies anymore, but a few shows I can see over and over. I hate soap opera type movies and tv shows. Give me an adventure any day. As far as the Oscars, there is some show and actor that will win every year. Does not mean it or they are any good, but something/someone has to win it.

[Wing_Z]

I was dragged off to SIL and nodded off, so missed the point somewhat: it is a COMEDY!
It is also the only "comedy" category movie to get an Oscar in 30 years, and none has since.
Maybe the Academy needed a laugh that year.

As to war films, I don't find them particularly entertaining, especially if they set out to make you cry.
But if glamorising war is your thing, you should perhaps balance that view with the most accurate depictment of war ever made:
Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima...Two sides of the same coin, and brilliantly made.

[Wittpilot]

I still enjoyed Band of Brothers more than Saving Privat Ryan on the whole...Both were great and done by the same people... just though Brothers was more enjoyable to watch....

[GT182]

I enjoyed both movies. Band of Brothers more than Saving Private Ryan. But both depict war as it really is... Hell.

Band of Brothers because I've met 3 members of the Easy Company, Red Foley, Bill Guarnere and Ron Spears. Plus Dick Winters lived not all far away from me. I always wanted to meet him and shake his hand but that's no longer possible.

Saving Private Ryan, because it was that good.

Right now I'm reading 'A Company Of Heros' by Marcus Brotherton. Personal memories of the little known men from Easy Company we haven't heard much about. They're no different than any of us, only born in a different time that put them in the middle of Hell.

[TeaSea]

To be honest, if any film was robbed that year, it was Elizabeth which was far far better than Shakespeare in Love and probably better than Private Ryan too - although I am a bit of a student of Tudor history, so have to admit to a certain partiality.

Elizabeth was another movie that year that I enjoyed, but IMO lacked the emotional impact of "Ryan"...I will admit it did bring home the quite awful truth of burning "heretics" in the opening scenes, which made even me wiggle a bit.

As a student of the Tudor period, I'm sure you could spot the inaccuracies, however they didn't play that much with history, and I think they kept to the basic premise and made a reasonable effort and presenting characters as they may well have been. I especially liked Francis Walsingham's depiction.

I categorize movies as buyers,renters, tvers, (TV only), or dber's (don't bothers).

Elizabeth was a "buyer".