ALSO-RANS AND THE DUMBEST METAPHOR EVER

After Sunday, there will be no more need for anymore stupid Oscar posts until next year. But hey, one more won't kill us until then. What's on my mind at the moment are pictures whose historical legacy would have been greatly improved by an Oscar or two. Or, in some cases, an Oscar or two more. This should not be confused with a “DEY WUZ ROBBED” rant about the injustices of cinema history, because ultimately Oscars really don't mean shit. Citizen Kane, for example, isn't exactly sitting at home getting all emo because How Green Was My Valley got Best Picture that year. How Green Was My Valley got married to a kind of dorky dude, had a couple kids, gained thirty pounds and now yearns for its days as a nubile young debutante, while Citizen Kane still looks spectacular in a little black cocktail dress and in low enough light can still pick up comely young post-graduates of either sex. Because 40s movies are women in their 40s. You know, because—fuck it, okay, moving on.

But here's a random sampling of Oscar also-rans that were really good and could have used a statue or two to help them be remembered.

Babel (2006) Dir. Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu

Now, don't get me wrong. I love The Departed, and put it on my 10 best of the decade, on which list Babel was absent. And I'll concede that, having only seen this once under extremely singular circumstances—coming down from one of the worst migraines of my life—I may not be terribly objective here. But Babel makes more sense to me as a Best Picture winner than The Departed. It's not like you can say one is good and one is bad, or one is good and one is better, because they're two entirely different movies. The Departed was, at its core, a cops-and-robbers movie; never mind that it's a really fucking good one, but cops-and-robbers pictures are as old as the cinema.

Babel was something other. Its theme—the difficulties and, often, failures of communication—is one with its technique, a fractured, occasionally jumpy (and in the case of that fucking extraordinary scene in the Tokyo nightclub when the sound cuts out for the deaf girl's POV shots, overwhelming to the senses) and decidedly Artistic. Now, if you're about to make the counterargument that Inarritu is a show-off douchebag whose greatest artistic successes were due to his good fortune at being able to work with Guillermo Arrianga, go ahead and make it, because you're absolutely right. Inarritu is a show-off douchebag, and he was fortunate enough to have one of his generation's best screenwriters covering for his occasional lack of depth as a filmmaker. But Babel was great. Best Picture, but let Marty keep Best Director for The Departed. Just because why torture the guy in a hypothetical scenario when it took him so long to get the damn thing.

Sideways (2004) Dir. Alexander Payne

Now, I know what you're thinking: “But they hyped the shit out of this back in '04, Bowes, the weed's giving you amnesia.” My friends, you mustn't think so little of me. Sideways was the first major tragic victim of those catastrophically irritating Fox Searchlight Oscar campaigns that invariably result in the following timeline:

May: word comes back from Cannes—such and such is a good picture, Fox Searchlight acquires it for distribution.
June-August: nothing. Maybe one unusually prescient Entertainment Weekly article written by someone who saw it at Cannes saying, “hey, such and such ain't bad.”
August-December: Movie is released to orgasmic reviews.
Approximately ten days before Christmas-Martin Luther King Day: Movie is the Oscar frontrunner.
Martin Luther King Day-Valentine's Day: General populace becomes irritated with the excessive hype.
Valentine's Day-Oscars: It is no longer cool to like the movie.
Spirit Awards: Movie sweeps, annoying the fuck out of the nice, kind of hot woman in the size 14 dress who made her movie for $20,000 who loses to it in every category.
Oscars: Movie wins for Best Screenplay and gets shut out of everything else.

Sideways paved the way for Little Miss Sunshine (which actually did really suck and its disappearance from the historical record is no tragedy) and Juno (which was sunk less by the ad campaign, which was half-ass competent for a change, and more by people's dislike for screenwriter Diablo Cody, which I personally don't get, I think she's terrific when she eases up on the mildly tone-deaf attempts at hipster dialogue). But Sideways is a much better movie than either LMS or Juno, and its failure to break through to the next level of public awareness that a Best Picture win would have afforded it has had a couple really negative effects: Alexander Payne hasn't directed another picture since—his most recent credit is co-writing the Adam Sandler fart Don't Mess With the Zohan—and Paul Giamatti was forced to make an M. Night Shamaladingdong picture, which no self-respecting mammal should have to do (labor unions were formed specifically to guard against such horrors). Not to mention that Virginia Madsen, one of the most sneaky hot actresses ever and certainly one of the unluckiest (none of her breakthroughs or comebacks have ever made money) would have benefited from a little more recognition. Sandra Oh came out okay, ending up on that Gray's Anatomy thing that people watch. Thomas Haden Church was the only person involved whose career got a boost, but he's proceeded to put bullet holes all through both feet since: Spider-Man 3 was a brontosaurus turd, and All About Steve is rapidly developing a reputation as one of the worst comedies ever, and those are the best movies he's been in since Sideways.

And yes, Sideways came out the same year as Eternal Sunshine, which was a better movie, but Eternal Sunshine didn't need the Oscar. In fact, Eternal Sunshine's rep was improved by not winning too many Oscars. It gets to be the cool kid (if Citizen Kane is the hot bisexual cougar banging 20 somethings, Eternal Sunshine is that woman of no determinable racial background you meet at a gallery opening or site-specific theatre piece who wears lots of scarves and things and begins sentences with “That was the summer I was in Rangoon, and I look many lovers . . . would you like to try this opium, dear boy?”) Sideways could have used the boost. Maybe if we hop in the time machine, shoot Paul Haggis in the head, burn every print of Million Dollar Baby, and chainsaw Paul Haggis to make sure he's done writing, we could sway the Oscar voting . . .

Every Hal Ashby movie in the 70s except Coming Home, which can eat a dick.

Because it's a goddamn shame no one remembered who Hal Ashby was until Peter Biskind wrote Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. The Landlord was solid, Harold and Maude is Harold and Maude (though I'm wary of people who say that's their favorite movie, just because we tend to have little to talk about aside from Harold and Maude), The Last Detail is top 5 in one of the best decades in the history of cinema, Shampoo is kind of a masterpiece, Bound For Glory is one of the best biopics ever made, and Being There fuckin rules. Yeah, the 80s weren't kind to Hal Ashby, but that's six A minus or better movies right there, with each containing about five of the greatest scenes you've ever seen.

I'm sure there are others. If you can think of one, mention it in the comments, so I can bitchily say that it doesn't fit my criteria and you can go, “God, that guy's kind of funny sometimes but boy is he an asshole.” Peace out, see y'all tomorrow if all goes well for the Oscar live blog!

EDIT: Alas, no live-blog. I will do a retroactive diary, though.