Saturday, March 23, 2024

1988 Alternate Oscars

Tom Hanks has been my generation's Jimmy Stewart for more than forty years now but it was his performance in 1988's Big, dancing with Robert Loggia on that giant piano, that earned Hanks his first Oscar nomination. Here at the Monkey, it earns him an alternate Oscar.



By the way, today is the fifteenth anniversary of the beginning of this blog. Don't know what that signifies other than my own stubborn irrelevance but I'm having a good time ...








My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

2017 - 2018 - 2019 Alternate Oscars

If you don't mind, I'm going to jump ahead for a minute to let you know I have three more years of alternate Oscar polls up and running — 2017, 2018 and 2019. The first is a final vote to pick the winners, the other two are to pick the nominees.

(Kudos to anybody who knows whose picture that is at the top of the page and why I've posted it.)

2017


2018


2019

My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.

Monday, March 4, 2024

1987 Alternate Oscars

Much like The Shawshank Redemption a few years later, The Princess Bride didn't find an audience until it reached the rental aftermarket ...

If you haven't seen it, The Princess Bride is a swashbuckling romance/comedy (as distinct from a romantic comedy) of the first order. Told as a story within a story, the movie opens with a doddering grandfather (the hilarious Peter Falk) insisting on reading a book to his skeptical grandson (Fred Savage) who is home from school with the sniffles.

"When I was your age, television was called books."
So what's in this book? Glad you asked.

"Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles ..."
"Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake."
"Oh, well, thank you very much, very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming."

After that, the story — stuffed with the aforementioned swashbuckling, romance and raucous comedy — unfolds on screen, although Peter Falk helpfully pops in from time to time:

"She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time."
"What?!?"
"The eel doesn't get her. I'm explaining to you because you look nervous."
"I wasn't nervous. Maybe I was a little bit concerned, but that's not the same thing."

Stars Cary Elwes and Robin Wright as the young lovers, Chris Sarandon as the evil Prince Humperdinck, Wallace Shawn as an assassin for hire, Mandy Patinkin and Andre the Giant as his morally-conflicted henchmen, and Billy Crystal and Carol Kane as, respectively, a down-on-his-luck wizard and his no-nonsense wife.
Based on the book of the same name by legendary screenwriter William Goldman, The Princess Bride is endlessly quotable:

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

"We'll never survive."
"Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."

"Inconceivable!"
"You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders — the most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia' — but only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!'"

"Have fun storming the castle!"

And many others.
The Princess Bride was directed by Rob Reiner in the middle of one of the greatest runs of great movies any director has ever had — This Is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery and A Few Good Men. The train came off the tracks after that and I really have no idea what Rob Reiner's been up to the last thirty years. But for a while there, he was as good as anybody ever.

So. If you haven't seen The Princess Bride, see it. And if you have, treat yourself and see it again. One of the Monkey's all-time faves.



My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.

Thursday, February 8, 2024

1986 Alternate Oscars

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled program ...

I had Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters down as the best picture of the year pretty much from the day I first saw it thirty-eight years ago. But now I'm not so sure. It's still a pretty good movie with great performances by Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest, and I think of one line — "I don't sell my art by the yard!" — every time I walk into an art gallery and cough up for another painting.

But, well, it just doesn't stick to my ribs the way it used to. Times change. Tastes change.

You're still free to vote for it, of course.

Me, I'm going with A Room with a View, a romantic-comedy about stuffy Brits who fall in love during a vacation in Florence, Italy. Katie-bar-the-door and I saw it during a vacation in, yes, Florence, Italy, at the Cinema Astro across the street from the best gelato joint in town. Fun times. Good movie.

But as always, the final choice is yours.








My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

The Barbenheimers

Let's get right to it. The Oscar nominations came out yesterday and I am so steamed that Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie didn't get nominations, you have no idea. I'll probably start an alternate Oscars blog in protest ...

Oh, wait, I already write one.

Look, I can't honestly say I'm surprised the clowns at the Academy failed to nominate Gerwig and Robbie — after all, Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar, and Edward G. Robinson was never even nominated! — but nevertheless, the Oscars are fundamentally broken. Come Oscar time, these idiots routinely belittle the tastes of the ticket-buying public then claim to be mystified that no one watches the ceremony. Of course not! Why would we?! If we wanted to watch the Independent Spirit Awards, we'd watch the ... Independent Spirit Awards!

But no matter. I'm starting a new subcategory of the alternate Oscars. We'll call them the Barbenheimers with the nominees limited to the only serious choices I had in my mind when I was making out lists of possible nominees for the 2023 alternate Oscars. I've set it up so you can vote once an hour in perpetuity which is how frequent and durable my Barbie-loving rage is.

Have at it.

And when you're done, I would appreciate it if you would follow the link at the bottom of the page and vote on the 1985 alternate Oscars. Thank you in advance ...


And please, follow this link to vote for the 1985 alternate Oscars!