OVP: Picture (2001)

 OVP: Best Picture (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Brian Grazer & Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind

Robert Altman, Bob Balaban, & David Levy, Gosford Park

Graham Leader, Ross Katz, & Todd Field, In the Bedroom

Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, & Barrie M. Osborne, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Martin Brown, Baz Luhrmann, & Fred Baron, Moulin Rouge

My Thoughts: And we have come to the end of our 22nd season of the Oscar Viewing Project.  We will have our My Ballot (where I pick my personal choices for all categories, regardless of Oscar nominations) tomorrow, but we are done today with Oscar's choices.  I initially wanted to start going out-of-order (we will be doing that relatively soon), but some things got in the way of doing that next, and so we will be starting 2000 (and finishing up all of the 2000's in the process) next week.  But for now, we have one last round with the five films we've been discussing for the past couple of months (links at the bottom of the page), so sit back, relax, and let's start the show!

Much of these write-ups, I've been ending with The Fellowship of the Ring, so we're going to switch it up and start with that.  Peter Jackson's beautiful beginning to JRR Tolkien's story technically has some issues if you want to judge it by inches.  It is an incomplete story, with maybe the least emotionally impactful of the endings of the original trilogy.  But that's splitting hairs.  The movie is iconic in every single second, rarely with any spare time (everything feels needed), and gives us a dozen characters we believe in & fall in love with.  It was made at the exact right time, and is one of my favorites-I can't pretend otherwise.

Moulin Rouge! I distinctly remember watching at a sleepover for the first time.  I was 17, and everyone else there had seen it (I had been told I couldn't, though I just looked and it's PG-13 so I'm not entirely sure what my parents were forbidding on this one).  I was smitten.  The film is gaudy, romantic, and beautifully-acted with a career-best performance from Ewan McGregor, and a lightning-in-a-bottle turn from Nicole Kidman.  Throw in the rare (only?) jukebox musical score that feels authentic to the songs and not just like a greatest hits album, and you've got the best musical of the 21st Century.

A Beautiful Mind is, in my opinion, one of those Best Picture winners that gets a bad rap.  It's a good movie-the way it plays, with thriller elements and a strong performance from Russell Crowe in the lead, it's really enjoyable & I like the film.  But the problem is that it's not good enough for a Best Picture winner.  If you're going to strive for that title, especially against four excellent films, you need to be distinctive, you need to bring new chapters, & you need to go beyond what Ron Howard is doing here.  Good is fine for a Thursday night movie, but if you're giving out an Oscar...you gotta stand out more than this.

Gosford Park definitely has that distinction.  Robert Altman doesn't naturally seem like someone who could feel at-home in an English manor (the man most famous for his insights into country music & the film industry).  But he brings that sensibility, that vision of seeing through just existing to Gosford Park.  The mystery, difficult-to-solve but all of the clues are there, stands apart, as do the performers.  Like all Altman films, you gravitate toward a different performance each time, but with strong work from Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, & Emily Watson (among others), this is an embarrassment of riches.

In the Bedroom was one of the best "what's hiding in the suburbs?" movies that came out at the turn of the century, and what keeps it strong is the central performances.  I love the ways that Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, & Marisa Tomei all have secret agendas behind each scene.  Watching the film again, I was struck by how those are there fro the beginning, clearly, when you know how it's going to end (Spacek's adjusting mother, Wilkinson's nostalgic father, Tomei's aware girlfriend), but Field's films always leave you with more questions than answers, and this is no exception.  But it still leaves you fulfilled, wanting more rather than filling short-changed.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy so we have ten films to discuss, while Oscar was still only nominating five.  For Drama A Beautiful Mind beat In the Bedroom, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Man Who Wasn't There, & Mulholland Drive, while Comedy/Musical went to Moulin Rouge! atop Bridget Jones's Diary, Gosford Park, Legally Blonde, & Shrek (this was before the Globes had a separate category for animation).  BAFTA favored The Fellowship of the Ring against Amelie, A Beautiful Mind, Moulin Rouge!, & Shrek while the PGA went with Moulin Rouge! as the victor against A Beautiful Mind, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Fellowship of the Ring, & Shrek.  In sixth place, I think it's anyone's guess.  Black Hawk Down & Mulholland Drive got Best Director citations, Shrek & Harry Potter were populist hits with a lot of heat at the time, and even something like Memento, Iris, or Ali was probably closer than the precursors might indicate.  I'll let you debate in the comments if you want over sixth place.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow!

Oscar’s Choice: A Beautiful Mind is one of those films that's so up Oscar's alley, and against flashy musicals and fantasy epics...there was no beating it.  It won by more than the precursors suggest.

My Choice: For sure The Fellowship of the Ring.  I love Moulin Rouge! (silver), but of the three Peter Jackson OVP Best Picture wins, this is the the one that gets the easiest victory (even if The Two Towers is my favorite).  It's just so distinctive, and such a titanic achievement.  Behind them will be Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, and then A Beautiful Mind.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Do you want to solve math problems with John Nash & Oscar or cast spells with Gandalf & I?  With a lot of options, who do you think was the just miss for this lineup?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2001?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2001: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

Past Best Picture Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Director (2001)

OVP: Best Director (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Robert Altman, Gosford Park

David Lynch, Mulholland Drive

Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind

Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Ridley Scott, Black Hawk Down

My Thoughts: We are nearing the end of our 2001 races, and we're now getting to maybe the most maligned Oscar race of my lifetime, certainly the most-maligned Best Director race of my lifetime.  The Oscars have a very specific type of brand, and also a grand history of rejecting major names in directing.  Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, & Ingmar Bergman-all icons of cinema, all nominated for Best Director...all never won it.  In 2001, Oscar decided in a field of no previous winners that Ron Howard was the most overdue for a victory, and to Howard's detriment, only one of the four directors competing against him has won since, making this look like he took the statue from three legends making better films.

I wish I could stand here and say that Howard is being misrepresented or defend the guy, but I can't.  Howard is capable of directing good movies, and A Beautiful Mind is a good movie, but the direction is the weakest aspect of the film.  The additions of the queer narrative at the edges, the way that Connelly's character feels like just a vessel for Crowe to pass through, and the schmaltzy ending all are choices by the director to lean into the sentimental, rather than the compelling or charming aspects of Crowe's leading work.  It feels like a paint-by-numbers approach from a director who had been doing job-for-hire work for nearly two decades come 2001.

While the other three have the chance still to win a competitive Oscar (and Jackson, of course, already took one for this category two years later), the ship has sailed for Robert Altman.  While Gosford Park is not his best movie, it is a very strong film, and one that encapsulates what he does well.  I love the way that the camera feels like a spectator, passing between rooms & catching little conversations in real time.  This is a staple of Altman's style, but it also works particularly well between the upstairs/downstairs angles, where you are catching things that the wealthy crowd missed because they're the ones talking.

Mulholland Drive is not showing up again from Oscar (I'll be talking through it a bit more in the My Ballot), so I want to profess my love of it on record since this was its only nomination.  I think what Lynch does here is genius, giving us the world of a young woman, desperate for fame, and what happens to that young woman when it doesn't materialize.  The way that it's structured is meant to be ambiguous, but it works well.  The movies are about us projecting our insecurities, our desires, our revenges...all of it onto a beautiful pixilated figure coming out of the darkness.  Lynch captures that essence while also showing the dangers of living your life as if it's destined for the stars.

Ridley Scott, a year after coming within centimeters of winning this trophy outright, got something of an afterglow nomination for Black Hawk Down.  I think this is good-the attack scenes are tight, and the balance with what we learn from the other actors when they aren't in action is also good.  I would've liked a bit more perspective, or maybe some sort of mix on the "war is hell" trope that I didn't already see from him, particularly given it's Scott (who we know is capable of such intellectual exercises).  It's a good, solidly-constructed war film, but I want more when we're talking Oscar.

Peter Jackson would win an Oscar two years later for Return of the King, but this is a friendly reminder that with the OVP, you only judge what's in front of you (and not if they'll win a different year), and with Fellowship of the Ring, you get something pretty remarkable.  The preamble is perfectly done, giving us exposition without it feeling that way, and the ending works pretty well too; yes, it's not a complete film like the other four, but it does stand alone too.  In the middle, we get a dozen brilliant characters introduced, a long movie that never feels like it's serving up dishes to spare, and several miraculous performances.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Robert Altman (I didn't remember that either), besting Howard, Jackson, Lynch, Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!), and Steven Spielberg (AI: Artificial Intelligence).  The DGA went to Howard against Jackson, Luhrmann, Scott, & Christopher Nolan (Memento), while BAFTA went to Jackson against Howard, Altman, Luhrmann, & Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie).  Of the crew...it's gotta be Luhrmann, right?  I mean, he also got in with Best Picture and his leading lady was nominated-it screams sixth place.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Luhrmann's miss here is so bizarre not just because he hit every checkmark headed into the night, but also because he deserved to be there.  Totally robbed, and should've gotten his first (and for my money, only) directing nomination for Moulin Rouge!.
Oscar's Choice: I'm guessing there was at least some movement toward Jackson, but the acolytes for Altman & Scott also deserving trophies probably took some of his support, and Howard nabbed the statue.

My Choice: Jackson, for sure...this birthed an entire new chapter in cinema, he deserves credit for that.  Lynch, Altman, Scott, and then Howard follow.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Do you want to join me over in the Shire, or do I dare to ask if Ron Howard has his supporters?  We know Altman's time has passed, but will Lynch or Scott get their trophy (or at least an Honorary) before their time is up?  And why did Baz get skipped here?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2001: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

Past Best Director Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Film: Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Stars: Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso, Owen Asztalos, Freida Pinto

Director: Ron Howard

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actress-Glenn Close, Makeup & Hairstyling)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I like reading, but I don't do it as often as I should or like, and shouldn't get credit for being a devoted reader if you're a bibliophile (I put away maybe 15-20 books a year-consider that a "frequent reader" or a "casual one" on your terms).  So it's not often that I get to see a movie based on a book from the past ten years and say "I read the book," but Hillbilly Elegy is weirdly a movie I can claim that about.  I was in a book club briefly that was focused on more modern literature, and one of the titles that was chosen was JD Vance's memoir, and so I went into it with little knowledge of what it was about (I didn't read it), and came away...truly hating the book.  The book is part a story of Vance's rough childhood, with a drug-addicted mother & a hard scrabble existence in rural Kentucky & Middletown, Ohio, but it's also a disgusting, oftentimes prejudiced look at race, economics, education, & the government.  It is not a film that I would normally pay money to watch, but considering both Adams & Close are in the Oscar conversation (and that it was free on Netflix), I did catch it, and while it's an improvement on the book...well, you saw the star rating, right?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie alternates between 1997 and 2011, and focuses on JD (Basso as an adult, Asztalos as a child), whose childhood is spent in near constant states of disarray due to his mother Bev's (Adams) issues with drug addiction, while as an adult he feels out-of-place with his Ivy League colleagues as he tries to get an internship as a second year at Yale Law.  JD is forced to take a trip back to see Bev, risking his interview, because she's become addicted to heroin, and has hidden his girlfriend Usha (Pinto) from them because (without saying so, but it's the clear implication) she's not white & he's not sure how his mother will handle that.  As the movie goes along, we see JD's relationship with his grandmother Mamaw (Close), which greatly influenced his life as she was a stabilizing factor in him not ending up like his mother, and in the end he gets the internship (abandoning his mother at a hotel after giving a speech about "family coming first" without even a hint of understanding the irony of that action), and as we see over the credits, his mother becomes sober & he marries Usha.

Ron Howard does a decent job of repurposing really problematic source material, even if he isn't always successful-I want to give the film that before we start because it could've been considerably worse.  Howard, unlike Vance, is a Democrat, and therefore doesn't share all of Vance's beliefs, and cuts out a lot of Vance's libertarian views on welfare (which are hypocritical in the books as he ignores the moments in the story when his family does take government money or charity), as well as Vance's problematic views on race.  Howard tries as hard as he can to simply make this a sentimental story about family & hard times, something that he has done before, and with great success.

But JD Vance is not Jim Lovell or James Braddock...he's no hero, and he's certainly not compelling.  Howard likely couldn't get the rights of the book & totally sideline JD's narrative in favor of the more interesting one between the two principle female characters, and as a result we are left with a rather ordinary child whom everyone keeps saying "has promise."  The reality is, though, that he doesn't-JD as written in the movie doesn't appear to be that smart.  In a truly uncomfortable scene, one that is meant to show the "otherism" of the intellectual, moneyed counterparts of his at Yale, he attacks them for thinking ill of his mother, but before that talks about his family as if he's ten, attacks their own experiences, and he does appear to have a severe lack of maturity & worldview that makes JD the character insufferable throughout (this was one of the many problems with the book).  JD is unlikable, and while obviously he rose above tough surroundings to make it to Yale (one has to assume that he has a modicum of intelligence, or at least ambition, in real life to get to that level), the character in the movie is hopeless.

You of course don't buy a ticket to this movie to talk about JD, even though it's his story; you buy it because Amy Adams & Glenn Close are starring in the movie.  I'm sorry to say that if you're here for them to finally win their overdue Oscars, they're either not getting them or they're getting them for the wrong performances.  Adams has no grounding in this woman, playing each scene to the hilt & creating no consistency in her; the script does her zilch favors (as does the entire quandary around JD being a black hole for charisma), but this is the worst performance I've seen from Adams.  It's a mess from a brilliant actress.  Close is better, and the only thing remotely worth saving in this movie (she plays her part much more subdued than Adams), but it's still dismissible, and she cannot ground the childlike idolization of Mamaw with her being a real woman.  It's a part that'd be easy to root for if you liked the movie...but I cannot fathom why someone would like this movie.

Who Will Win the 2020 AFI Life Achievement Award?

A few weeks ago, we did a look at who might be the next American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and since I had a lot of fun creating the list, I thought it might be enjoyable to take a look at a different upcoming major career recognition honor, the AFI Life Achievement Award.  This past summer, Denzel Washington was the recipient of the distinction, arguably the highest career honor in American cinema, but the organization actually doesn't wait long to announce its next winner, and if history teaches us anything, the victor will be proclaimed in early October, so we're only a few weeks away from learning the winner of the 2020 trophy.  As a result, I thought it'd be fun to take a look at a Top 10 list of who might be selected as the next honoree.

Before we get to the list, it's worth name-checking a few things that previous winners have had in common, so as to deduce who might be most likely to win this year.  47 film luminaries, ranging from John Ford in 1973 to Washington last year, have taken the trophy, so we have a bit of data to mine for clues as to whom next year's honoree might be.

Age: The average age of a winner is 69, though that's definitely an average (Steve Martin is the only winner to have actually been 69 when he won).  19 of the winners have been in their 70's, which is by far the most common age group to have won in, and no victor has been older than 90 (top in age was Lillian Gish) or under 46 (Tom Hanks was the youngest, and that win was criticized enough that I doubt they go for someone that young again).  So this probably means someone like Olivia de Havilland is out, as is someone like Leonardo DiCaprio.  As a result, bonus points to anyone somewhere between about 65 and 79, though obviously they could and have leaned outside that age range.

Occupation: The award is open to anyone in the film industry, but like most honors, it's more geared toward movie stars.  70% of the winners have been principally known for acting, and all but one of the remaining victors have been film directors (the sole person who was neither was John Williams, and there's really no living behind-the-scenes person who could rival Williams in terms of public perception, so it's going to be a movie star or a director).  The film directors who did make it are extremely well-known, just as famous to the public in recent years as a movie star (think George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg), so don't count on aging directing superstars like Norman Jewison or Ridley Scott, as they likely aren't famous enough.  They're also not American which brings us to...

Geography: This is the American Film Institute Award, and while that title doesn't preclude anyone, it sure helps if you're American.  94% of the winners were Americans upon the time they won (this includes people who enjoyed dual citizenship like Elizabeth Taylor and Sidney Poitier), which is potentially why foreign-born icons like Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, & Laurence Olivier never won, and likely why figures such as Julie Andrews or Sophia Loren (who otherwise would have been shoo-ins) haven't taken the honor yet.  The three foreign-born figures who did win (Sean Connery, David Lean, and Alfred Hitchcock) don't really have a lot in common, so it's hard to find some commonality to one person getting in if they aren't American.

Oscar History: If you're going to be taking the AFI title, it helps (a lot) if you're an Oscar winner.  77% of all of the honorees were at the time of their victory winners of at least one competitive Academy Award, and another ten were nominees (two of which, Henry Fonda & Martin Scorsese, would win competitive Oscars post their AFI ceremony).  The only person to have never been nominated for an Oscar and still win the AFI is Steve Martin, someone you'd be hard-pressed to find an obvious corollary to today.  This pattern has gotten even stronger in recent years-85% of the past twenty recipients were Oscar winners (excluding Martin, George Lucas, & Harrison Ford).  So it's likely that the next person to take the AFI will have won a competitive Oscar.

Gender: The ceremony seems to be trying to correct this in recent years, but it's still very much a boy's club at the AFI.  81% of all winners have been men, and the ceremony has never honored a woman who was solely or principally known as a behind-the-scenes figure (women like Shirley MacLaine, Barbra Streisand, and Diane Keaton have all directed films and won the AFI, but all three made their names in movies as actors).  The last two winners have been male, but history has shown that doesn't necessarily mandate that we'll be seeing a woman here in 2020.

DeMille/Kennedy: There are at least two other awards (other than Oscar) that are a strong indicator of whether or not someone will take the AFI trophy-the Cecil B. DeMille Award and the Kennedy Center Honor.  62% of all winners of the AFI were also DeMille winners and of those who were alive to receive it (the Kennedy Center Honors started last of the three honors, in 1978, so John Ford was dead by the time they rolled around despite having already won the AFI), 69% of the AFI Award victors also won the Kennedy Center Honor.  23 people have pulled off all three.  While the AFI has occasionally led the field (ie someone won it there before they picked up other honors, like Steven Spielberg or Elizabeth Taylor), it's a pretty strong indication if you're primarily known for film and you win one of these trophies that you're going to win one (or both) of the others.  One could make a sincere argument that the list of people who have taken the DeMille or Kennedy Center Honor without also having an AFI is particularly short right now, so AFI may be forced to add a new name to the roster next year.  Of the 16 DeMille and/or Kennedy Center victors (without an AFI) who have meaningful cinematic contributions, almost all of them have something stopping them from taking this leg of the Cinematic Life Achievement Triple Crown (I started calling it that years ago...and it has not caught on).  There are several non-Americans (Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews) or Americans more commonly known for citizenship in a different country (Anthony Hopkins, Angela Lansbury).  There are figures with major contributions to cinema but who are more known for TV (Cicely Tyson, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno), music (Cher), or the stage (James Earl Jones, Lansbury again), and then there are a few figures due to health or antipathy to such things might not show up at all (Joanne Woodward, Gene Hackman, Woody Allen).  That actually only leaves four figures who could be considered real contenders that AFI hasn't picked yet, and all four will be listed below so I won't spoil the fun just yet.

Fame: This is a hard one to quantify, but all of the winners have to be famous, and tend to still be extremely well-known when they won.  This has become even more pertinent in recent years.  Arguably the last time someone who wouldn't have been a household name still the year they won was Robert Wise in 1998, and in the past few years we've seen actors who are very active in modern filmmaking like Diane Keaton, George Clooney, and Denzel Washington take the trophy, so I suspect that the winner this year would either be still revered or quite frankly be someone whom you'd expect to be getting top billing on your local marquee.  This means that names like Ellen Burstyn, Sissy Spacek, Gena Rowlands, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, or Francis Ford Coppola, names that probably have earned this kind of distinction but aren't really household in the same way as Clooney, Keaton, & Washington, are going to struggle to get a citation without some sort of revival.  This ceremony is funded by advertising revenue, and as a result they need a bigger name for ratings.

With all of that said, here are my guesses as to who the Top 10 contenders for the trophy are.  Sound off in the comments if you have predictions as well!

Honorable Mentions: Lots of options here, but Goldie Hawn, Robert Duvall, Spike Lee, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Julie Andrews, and Michael Caine are all people that wouldn't surprise me, but all have at least some debits that would preclude them (age, geography, and fame being factors to at least some degree depending on the artist).  However, they're close enough to being real threats that I figured I needed to at least CYA myself by mentioning their names.

10. Ron Howard

Age: 65
Geography: American (born in Oklahoma)
Oscar History: 4 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Him: Howard is the rare American director who hasn't won this award that has the sort of name recognition (thanks to his previous years as an actor) and populist films (Cocoon, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind) that might win him a citation someday.  He's also well-liked by other directors who would have some influence in the selection such as George Lucas & Steven Spielberg (not to mention his movie star daughter could push for him & would make a glamorous, sentimental host for the evening), and he's nearly the right age for the win.
Why Not Him: Howard, though he does have a pair of Oscars, isn't really in the same pioneering league as the other directors from a critical perspective.  His closest corollary among the winning directors would be Lucas, and he's never made anything remotely as important to Hollywood as the Star Wars franchise (even though, ironically, he has made a film in the Star Wars franchise).  Howard makes a lot of sense in theory, but I wonder if they'd pull the trigger for him or wait for a director like Quentin Tarantino to be old enough before they pick another behind-the-scenes figure.

9. Glenn Close

Age: 72
Geography: American (born in Connecticut)
Oscar History: 7 nominations
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Her: Close recently had a bout of incredible press, first from her finally making a play for her Oscar trophy, and then a round of public sympathy for not actually winning an Oscar most assumed was in the bag.  She's well-known to audiences (everyone's heard of her) but still has critical hosannas in her corner to make this feel like a classy choice, and would be near the average age for a winner.  Could she be chosen as a way of the industry saying "yes, you're a legend" after she was denied that claim a few months ago?
Why Not Her: I mean, if she couldn't win the Oscar, it's hard to imagine that she'd take this trophy (like I said-it's very hard to win this if you aren't an Oscar winner).  Close seems a better fit for the Kennedy Center Honors considering she's nearly as well-known for television and stage as she is for film, and it's not like she has a lot of massive hits under her belt in the way that Denzel Washington or Tom Hanks does.

8. Jessica Lange

Age: 70
Geography: American (born in Minnesota)
Oscar History: 6 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Her: Lange has been having one of those great, late career renaissances that occasionally gets you to sweep awards like this.  In many ways it recalls Morgan Freeman, who wasn't particularly famous until much later in his career, and then suddenly he was greeted with an onslaught of awards. American Horror Story and Feud have earned her a new generation of fans, and if Keaton & Streep are going to win this trophy, it feels like Lange should join them as an 80's movie queen who stayed a household name decades later.
Why Not Her: Lange had a robust cinematic career, but other than Tootsie there aren't a lot of widely-remembered classics on the list.  More importantly, Lange's late-career renaissance has been for television, not for the movies in the way that Freeman's was.  She would get them ratings, and in some ways this might be what finally got Jane Fonda her trophy, but Fonda is way more iconic than Lange is in terms of her cinematic pedigree (even though they have matching Oscar counts), and Lange would be a harder sell for AFI without another great movie role.

7. Samuel L. Jackson

Age: 70
Geography: American (born in DC)
Oscar History: 1 nomination
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Him: Jackson is the highest-grossing actor in terms of Box Office draw ever.  He's worked with literally everyone (I wouldn't be stunned if even I've made a film with him at this point) and has been both a critical muse (Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, & Paul Thomas Anderson have all worked with him), as well as the star of major franchises like Jurassic Park, Avengers, Star Wars, and The Incredibles.  He's almost exactly the average age for the honor, and few figures in the past thirty years have been in as much American film as Jackson.
Why Not Him: The problem is that Jackson's made a lot of tripe along with all of those major paychecks.  Notice that Michael Caine has also never won this trophy, and almost certainly Johnny Depp is going to struggle to take it as well.  This is because Jackson's ubiquity hasn't necessarily translated to quality.  Every AFI winner has made a couple of stinkers, but Jackson's name isn't necessarily synonymous with quality, but rather quantity.  That's a problem if you're going to get the highest honor in American cinema.  Plus, even with all of those movies he's still never won an Oscar.

6. Tom Cruise

Age: 57
Geography: American (born in New York)
Oscar History: 3 nominations
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Him: Cruise is a bit young for the award, but few actors can boast his consistent movie star appeal.  Nearly 40 years after he became a headliner, he's still a leading man in major blockbuster movies, and has made a lot of the people who regularly sit in the AFI audience rich beyond their wildest dreams.  He's had quality films (those three Oscar nominations), and has enough movie moments through Jerry Maguire, Mission Impossible, and Top Gun to guarantee a built-in audience for the awards show.  All-in-all, this is a pretty solid bet for someone the AFI will want to claim...one of the few undisputed modern movie stars who can always land a picture.
Why Not Him: Cruise is a bit on the young side, and hasn't won an Oscar (or the DeMille yet, and I think that would come first for him considering the Globes love of celebrity).  More importantly, Cruise's public behavior since his 90's heyday makes this award come with some controversy.  Forgetting the Scientology aspect for a second (and that's a big thing to disregard), he's been erratic as a public figure & his films have taken a serious detour in quality since the early-aughts.  At this point he's more Sly Stallone & Liam Neeson than he is Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington, and Stallone/Neeson aren't anywhere near an AFI Life Achievement Award.

5. Sally Field

Age: 72
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 3 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Field will receive the Kennedy Center Honor later this year
Why Her: Field's recent Kennedy Center Honor is a big deal, as it elevates her to the same echelons of people like Lauren Bacall, Joanne Woodward, and Myrna Loy (three other actresses who got the Kennedy Center Honor but never AFI) rather than any number of 70-something actresses who were once headliners but now frequently come in as supporting players or in TV cameos.  The list of true film stars who get the Kennedy Center Honor and not the AFI is small, and Field comes with two Academy Awards, as well as a number of still iconic hits (Smokey and the Bandit, Steel Magnolias, Forrest Gump) and recent success (My Name is Doris, the Spider-Man movies) that could make this an easy sell from a fame perspective.
Why Not Her: Field probably wouldn't be a great choice in 2020, since she just won the Kennedy Center Honor (it's uncommon, though not unprecedented, for someone to get two such awards so close together).  One would think they'd wait a year or two before picking her.  That said, we're likely due for another female victor, and unlike the next two women, she's much closer to the age of the average recipient so I wouldn't discount her; Field represents a jump from "good guess, and maybe someday" to "I could truly see it happening in 2020."

4. Julia Roberts

Age: 51
Geography: American (born in Georgia)
Oscar History: 4 nods/1 win
DeMille or Kennedy?: Not yet
Why Her: Roberts is going to win this award at some point, as long as she lives long enough.  She's exactly the sort of figure who scores the AFI-popular, enduring, beautiful, a leading woman even when her star started to dim, and someone who scored an Oscar at the peak of her fame, so there's critical cache to go with the many, many hits.  Honestly, so confident am I that Roberts will win this, and win it soon, that I didn't even list Sandra Bullock on this list, despite me also thinking she could take this at some point as well (since Roberts will get this before Bullock, in the same way Meryl Streep was always going to win here before Diane Keaton).  It's not "if" but "when" for Julia Roberts.
Why Not Her: Roberts is the youngest person on this list, and while she wouldn't be the youngest victor ever (Hanks may have that record forever, unless the AFI goes for Leo DiCaprio in the next year or two), she'd be the third youngest after Hanks & Spielberg if she took it.  She regularly makes movies, and there's no rush.  Why not give it to her when she's approaching Clooney's age (he was 57)?  I think that will be the thought process for the AFI, at least.

3. Jodie Foster

Age: 56
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 4 nods/2 wins
DeMille or Kennedy?: Foster memorably took the DeMille at the 2012 ceremony
Why Her: Unlike Clooney, Foster is approaching Clooney's age (she'd be exactly his age if she was the 2020 victor), and she's one of only two people on this list who has taken the DeMille/Kennedy distinction AND has enough distance to that award that it wouldn't llok like they were copying the Globes.  Foster is an iconic star, iconic enough that even without a lot of recent film hits she could still feel like a relevant winner, and she's probably going to win this eventually.  The past two years have shown a propensity for picking actors that were a little young for the award, but were certainly going to take the trophy at some point-could that continue with Jodie?
Why Not Her: Aside from the age aspect, there's the lack of a lot of recent roles, and her tendency to be more political & press-shy than your average winner.  They have strayed in a way the Kennedy Center Honors have not (look at how Jane Fonda has the AFI but not the government-sanctioned Kennedy Center award), but her filmic resume in the past two decades is pretty thin for someone who would be winning a trophy that oftentimes comes at the tail-end of your cinematic career, not when it's largely been dormant for a decade.

2. Jeff Bridges

Age: 69
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 7 nods/1 win
DeMille or Kennedy?: Bridges took the DeMille earlier this year.
Why Him: He's exactly the right age for this, and like some other recent winners, he's been a constant movie presence for decades, but certainly a constant force in the last decade.  Bridges won his Oscar less than ten years ago, and has scored two citations since then, as well as a lot of renewed affection for being one of the best actors of his generation.  Everyone seems to love him (he'd have great speeches), and this has probably graduated to the "inevitable" at this point for AFI to pick him.  I can't really think of a better time to appreciate him with such a major honor, can you?
Why Not Him: The only thing holding me back from picking him is that he just won the DeMille.  Unlike the Kennedy Center Honors, the DeMille winner has to give a speech, so the AFI could risk all of their best material having gone to that Globes' speech that could still be in their memory rather than Bridges giving a fresher one at the AFI.  That's about the only reason I can think of not to pick him-he was my dark horse guess for this next year until he won the DeMille, and I suspect I'll be predicting him in 2021 if he doesn't take it next year.

1. Robert Redford

Age: 83
Geography: American (born in California)
Oscar History: 4 nods/1 win (as well as an Honorary Oscar)
DeMille or Kennedy?: DeMile in 1993 and Kennedy Center Honors in 2005
Why Him: One of the great mysteries of awards show nerddom, to the point where I always have to double check that I'm not wrong, is how Robert Redford hasn't won the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.  He's a film icon with a number of classic movies under his belt (he's worked with everyone from Marlon Brando to Paul Newman to Jane Fonda to Meryl Streep), he's an actor-director (Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, & Orson Welles can all attest that's a good way to win this), and he's also well-known for his celebration of smaller American film through his work with the Sundance Film Festival.  Should he not win, he'd be one of the biggest names to never take the honor, and one of the more regrettable.
Why Not Him: I genuinely don't know.  He's considerably older than the average winner, and it's hard to imagine that someone hasn't pitched this idea before.  Is he refusing to accept (this doesn't seem like Redford-he showed up for the Honorary Oscar and the Kennedy Centers relatively recently so why refuse the AFI specifically)?  I've never gotten the impression he's a jerk off-screen (and it's not like that's stopped them before-I mean, Dustin Hoffman has won this award).  Honestly, I can't think of a real reason that he hasn't won, and will be perplexed by him not winning until he dies or finally gets the trophy-his recent retirement surely makes a strong case for giving him this, right?  As a result, I'm going with the obvious answer here even though I've predicted Redford before for this honor.

OVP: Cinderella Man (2005)

Film: Cinderella Man (2005)
Stars: Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Bruce McGill, Craig Bierko
Director: Ron Howard
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Supporting Actor-Paul Giamatti, Makeup, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Boxing has long been Oscar's favorite sport.  In many ways, it might be the only sport that Oscar really cares about.  After all, while AMPAS occasionally has dalliances with baseball, track, or basketball, it's boxing that they return to most frequently, and is the only genre that would normally be considered "Oscar-bait."  It's not hard to see why this is; the Academy loves stories about one person overcoming obstacles and achieving some sort of personal & professional triumph.  The boxing motif has been tried-and-true, used countless times from Rocky to Raging Bull to Million Dollar Baby with consistent success, but it also means that it's predictable, and frequently a snooze unless the filmmakers can find some way to spice up the action on screen with some artistry or compelling performances.  Sadly, Ron Howard is not a director who is good at letting artistic license best conformity & an old-school Hollywood story, and as a result Cinderella Man is what happens when you put some talented actors in a room and give them nothing unique to say or do.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is the true story of boxer James J. Braddock (Crowe), a man who was once considered an up-and-coming contender, who has fallen on hard times.  We're at the height of the depression, and he breaks his hand in the ring, depriving him of a chance to make a living, and in many ways nearly ruining his chances of even being a dockworker.  His wife Mae (Zellweger), seems relatively happy he's out of the sport even though she knows they need the money, as she's spent most of their marriage worried he'll kill himself in the ring.  They struggle, and have to move their kids out of their house because they can't afford to pay the bills or rent, but one day a random opportunity has Braddock taking on World Number 2 Corn Griffin (who needs practice before a big fight), and Braddock beats him, as the breaking of his right hand has made his left much stronger.  Soon Braddock has become a major contender in the ring again, and has a chance to take on the reigning heavyweight champion Max Baer (Bierko), but Mae is worried that Baer (who has supposedly killed two men in the ring) will do the same to her husband.  They fight, but ultimately he ends up in the bout against Baer, and in an upset wins the title away from Baer, getting to live happily-ever-after with Mae and their kids in a house he buys from the winnings.

The film is uplifting, and it's kind of fun to see Crowe & Zellweger, who have in the years since seen their stars completely disappear (despite being a modest hit, this feels like sort of the end of their short reigns as two of the biggest names in Tinseltown) be proper movie stars once more, but it's not very good.  The movie is too conventional and too long.  The lead actors are fine, but they don't rise above this material, and after both had won three Oscar nominations a piece in the six years prior to this movie, we know they can do better than just sturdy.  Howard crafts a handsome tale, but he doesn't have much heart, and neither of these actors distinguish their characters enough for us to care about them more than a middling movie.

The film won three Oscar nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor Paul Giamatti.  If you re-watch George Clooney's Golden Globes acceptance speech from that year, he started it out with "I thought Paul Giamatti was gonna win."  Indeed, at the time it looked like it'd be a race between Giamatti & Clooney for this trophy (Giamatti would win the SAG), thanks in large part to the belief that Giamatti had been robbed the year before of an expected Oscar nomination for Sideways.  Watching this performance, though, Giamatti's work here feels a bit ancillary, and much the same schtick that he's been doing for the past fifteen years-a bombastic, larger-than-life guy infused with a masculine energy that feels like it's over-compensating to compete with his more famous male lead.  Giamatti's work here is easily forgettable, if pretty loud, and I'm thankful he didn't pick up a trophy for it.  We'll eventually get to the Oscar Viewing Project of 2005 (we'll be back into 2016's races in a few days), so I won't go too far in on Giamatti's work here, but I will say this is fine if they wanted to give a long-time character actor a random nomination (that happens with the supporting categories on occasion), but it's not groundbreaking or really rising above an already limited film.

OVP: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Stars: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany
Director: Ron Howard
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I never quite know whether or not to qualify myself as a proper Star Wars fan.  During my youth, I kind of dismissed the franchise as a bit gauche, I was so into more prestige cinema, and admittedly there are a lot of faults in the film's dialogue and repetitive character structuring.  This was proven accurate when the prequels came out and everyone abandoned the franchise, or at least qualified their love.  But in the years since, heading into The Force Awakens, I changed my tune a bit.  I now have a Star Wars shirt, and genuinely, gleefully shouted out loud when I saw the new trailer when Billy Dee Williams came in laughing.  It might be because there are so few filmic series that rival some of the obsessions people have otherwise in pop culture with video games or television shows that I can't really dismiss one of the few franchises that genuinely inspire such passion, even if I don't always return that ardor.

(Spoilers Ahead) This is all to say that when a movie like Solo comes along that sharply divides the major fandoms of Star Wars, I'm one of the few people who go into it ready to judge it on its merits, rather than feel some sort of betrayal if it doesn't match what I want from the film, or be ambivalent because I didn't care about what came before it in the series.  The film, the second stand-alone Star Wars movie, looks at a young Han Solo (Ehrenreich) who starts the picture escaping from the law, and loses his love Qi'ra (Clarke) when she's apprehended during their escape; he eventually joins the Imperial Navy.  We thus explore the origin story of Han Solo, learning how he initially met Chewbacca & Lando.  We also see him reunite later with Qi'ra, but she's now the lientenant of Vos (Bettany), a chief aide in the Crimson Dawn, run by Darth Maul (whom you remember from the prequels, and in a moment that made quite a few people in my audience gasp, is reprised briefly by the original actor Ray Park).  With his rough-and-tumble friend Beckett (Harrelson), Han and Chewbacca try to steal some coaxium (hyperspace fuel) from Vos, but in the process Vos is killed by Qi'ra (who takes his job in Maul's regime, though specifically not betraying that it was Han who was involved in the crime), and Han realizes that he's been double-crossed by Beckett, whom he kills.  The film ends with Han winning the Millennium Falcon from Lando, after discovering that Lando is cheating in his card games (a fact that will surely be employed in The Rise of Skywalker, right?).

There are two directions I go here.  The first is that it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing the title role other than Harrison Ford, and Ehrenreich in some ways was destined for failure here.  It's not that you can't reinterpret classic characters (though perhaps you shouldn't-hint hint Hollywood), but it's also that Ford is kind of in a different league when it comes to action heroes.  In his prime, Harrison Ford might be the greatest action-adventure star of all time, and his best creations (Han and Indiana Jones) are so completely identified with him that making another actor take them on seems cruel.  Yes, you could claim that eventually Daniel Craig lived up to the likes of Sean Connery, but we had to go through four other actors to get there, and Ford is better as Han/Indiana Jones than even Connery was as Bond.  As a result, Ehrenreich can't find the same sort of roguish charisma here, coasting on his easy handsomeness and charm (which, if you saw Hail, Caesar! is definitely there), but falling short of what we'd expect from someone playing Han Solo.

The reality is, though, if you can take this film outside of the lens of what you'd expect (and I'm not sure that you should, considering they slapped Star Wars on the title and incorporated Han, Chewbacca, and Lando into the franchise), this is still a fun movie.  No, no one is breaking the bank when it comes to great acting (Glover is more doing something inventive than giving a great performance), but it's not like the original Star Wars films didn't also have their problems, and I found this movie really fun.  It's lighter fare than we're used to in this franchise, but it doesn't have the plot holes and questionable visual effects of Rogue One, and there's enough scamp in the work of Glover & Harrelson to make it feel like a light, fluffy ride.  I get why super fans don't love it because it takes a lot of leeway with a classic cinematic character, but as I said-I'm a devoted, but casual fan, and I don't have that same level of attachment.  As a result, I'm going with three stars-it's fun on its own, and considering the box office, that's probably where it stays.

OVP: Picture (2008)

OVP: Best Picture (2013)

The Nominees Were...

Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, and Cean Chaffin, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Eric Fellner, Frost/Nixon

Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Milk

Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Donna Gigliotti, and Redmond Morris, The Reader

Christian Colson, Slumdog Millionaire

My Thoughts: I think at some point I'm just going to have to acknowledge that these write-ups are going to take a lot longer than I expected, as once again this write-up got spread over three months (at least it wasn't eight months like some other years we've gone through).  Either way, we'll be starting up 2014 either very late this week, or more than likely first thing next week so if you're an Oscar fanatic like yours truly you won't have to wait too long for your next OVP installment.  Until then, though, I feel like it's time for us to discuss these five films for the last time (if you're newer to the blog, click up-top for an explanation of the OVP and down-below for past Best Picture and 2008 contests).

Slumdog Millionaire is the film that has received the most ire of these five films throughout the write-ups, but it's worth noting that it was a unique sort of movie initially to receive all of these accolades.  Films from Bollywood have largely been forgotten in the world of the Oscars, and it's worth noting that Bollywood productions continue to do pretty decent-sized business in the US, even though the exact markets where they are playing is always a bit of a mystery (every year they release the Top 10 foreign-language films in the United States and 2-3 Bollywood productions I have never heard of in my life somehow end up in the list).  So it is cool that a film with people of color at the center managed to make it to the Best Picture field, though I would have preferred greatly if the film had been, you know, any good.  Between the stale performances by Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, the predictable plot, and the annoyingly cutesy way they mirrored the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire gimmick with the flashbacks, the film is really poor, one that wouldn't have been able to make it in a stronger year for the Best Picture field.

Because even if The Dark Knight and WALL-E had made it (one of those rare years where you could argue the blockbusters would have genuinely improved the quality of the field), this wasn't a particularly strong lineup.  Perhaps the only good thing that came from the weakness of the field was that Milk managed to score a nomination when it might have normally just been relegated to Best Actor.  Gus van Sant's movie is so bold and fresh.  It's one of those rare biopics that genuinely feels alive and like it's playing with the form.  Perhaps because we get to see Harvey Milk as a man, someone tempted by lust and power, even as he is a decent human being, the film feels like it will actually age well.  I loved the way that the film also, despite Harvey's name in the title, found a way to be about some of the side characters and show a little bit about the insularity of the gay world of the 1970's (where your family was essentially this series of men that you spent your life with since your blood family had abandoned you).  The film unfolds in a way that makes you genuinely get to the end of the picture wishing that Milk's assassination, which you know is coming, wouldn't be, and when you get so engrossed that you start to resist your own knowledge of what is coming next, that's a sign of a movie doing its job right.

Sadly this isn't the case with Froxt/Nixon, the other historical biopic that managed to make it to the Best Picture race.  At the time I loathed this film, but generally even the most hated of films tend to cool a bit as you get further away from them.  As I've mentioned a couple of times, the interviews themselves are quite well-done; Sheen and Langella are both good actors and have had such practice in these roles from their tours in the West End and on Broadway, and the way that Howard frames these scenes they feel both cinematic but have the theatricality that translates easily from the boards.  Still, though, the rest of the film is boring-Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt are kind of a snooze, and Kevin Bacon too extreme by half.  The entire film you're just hoping that we'll return to the interviews, and that's not really what you should be hoping for in a movie.  You want the audience to be savoring every moment if you're going to be calling yourself a Best Picture.

This is also the case with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the nominations leader who got to that point by checking off pretty much every tech box the Academy had (seriously-how many films get nominated for every visual tech category?!?), though I haven't been superbly kind to it (it's nabbed a pair of OVP awards thus far).  The film's problem isn't just that it's too long and that it's too surface-level, it's also that the film doesn't respond well to long and surface-level.  Based on a short story, the most compelling thing about the movie is the way that time sort of drips away, but that doesn't happen at the rate it should and we're frequently on diversions like war that just don't get into the hearty meat of the film.  There's things to admire here (the Visual Effects, while a little sloppy in hindsight, are still pretty cool, and Cate Blanchett's late scenes in the films are quite marvelous), but I couldn't help but think that the film itself was a bit tame and disappointing considering the caliber of those involved.

I still maintain, years later, that The Reader wasn't the film that deserved all of the hate from the Dark Knight crowd who hated on the Academy for picking a film that was admittedly right in their wheelhouse (a romance set during the Holocaust-that's pretty Oscarbait).  Still, I loved the movie.  I liked the weird briefness of the affair, and I thought that Winslet, Fiennes, Kross, and Olin were all marvelously cast.  The film gets so much mileage from showing the limited nature of Hanna.  She's a character that hasn't experienced much of the world, and of course never will, but lives through books in a way that many introverts find solace.  It's a little glib in some cases (we don't always get into the morality of Hanna herself, though the law students get very expositional in this regard in the film's weakest scenes), but the love story is fascinating and Winslet/Fiennes sell tortured affair better than pretty much anyone in film today not named Kristin Scott Thomas.  All-in-all, it's a film that I still count amongst my favorites of that year even if I'm in the minority.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went for nearly a carbon copy of the Best Picture lineup for their Drama category, with only Revolutionary Road making it in with Milk on the outskirts (Slumdog won).  The Best Comedy race was therefore a bevy of new names, including Burn After Reading, Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges, Mamma Mia!, and the victorious Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  The PGA Awards were similarly close to the Oscars, though in this case it was The Reader that was sacrificed and The Dark Knight put in its place (Slumdog took the top spot).  Finally at the BAFTA they strangely went for a carbon copy of both the nominees and the winner at the Oscars, despite Milk in particular seeming like a pretty American tale for them (they usually resist wholly American films).  The sixth place probably was The Dark Knight, though I'll entertain postulates of Changeling or Revolutionary Road in the comments section if you're so inclined to make them.

Films I Would Have Nominated: Definitely WALL-E, a film that has grown on me furiously through the years and is easily my favorite in hindsight amongst the rather limited batch of nominations.  I would also surely nominate the funniest film of 2008, In Bruges, one of those great flicks that will hopefully live on in 2 AM showings on a low-ranking HBO channel or on Netflix recommendation lists. Finally, I would indeed have nominated The Dark Knight.  I don't think it's the egregious snub that others did at the time (WALL-E was the best movie of the bunch), but I do think it deserved to be nominated for Best Picture, particularly when in comparison to a relatively slight film like Frost/Nixon.

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar continued on his merry way with Slumdog Millionaire, trumping Benjamin Button and The Reader.

My Choice: Definitely Milk followed quickly by The Reader.  None of the other films come close, but I would probably follow it with Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and Slumdog.

And there we have it folks-2008 is officially over with!  We'll roll over to 2014 next week, but in the meantime get your last thoughts on Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and most importantly all of those films you thought they should have been competing against out in the comments!  What was your favorite film of 2008?

Also in 2008: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2008

Past Best Picture Contests: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013