Jeezus...take away Grace Kelly's Oscar for "The Country Girl" and give it to Judy (Garland, natch) already! As Groucho Marx opined at the time, "This is the biggest robbery since Brinks'!" GK's phony-baloney performance--and MEGA-miscasting--have not withstood the test of time. TAKE IT AWAY RIGHT NOW!

In the "Strip Them of Their Nominations" category (okay, there wasn't one...but I'm creating one): The entire cast and crew of "The Bad Seed," ALL of whom, it seems, were nominated for Oscars! To see this hilariously horrid film today begs the question of how this could EVER have been taken seriously, let alone admired!! Nancy Kelly....for Best Actress??? "You better give those nominations back....RIGHT HERE TO ME!!"

Yeah - let's grab it out of Sally Field's clutching hands while she cries,"You don't like me! You really don't like me!"

I think Burt Reynolds should have won for Boogie Nights [best supporting ] instead of Robin Williams for Good will Hunting.

just my personal choice .

I agree with Micheal Loretta Young was a bore in the film, her accent was the worst.

Take back Oscar De La Hoya.

And also take back Kim Basinger's. Gloria Stuart should have won for Titanic!!

....." removing the gold from the undeserving," should be a film segment starring the crew from OPERATION REPO with orders, fights, name calling and confiscation.

The year Loretta Young won, Roz Russell was supposed to win for "Mourning Becomes Elektra." I'm not saying Roz should have won for that, but she shoud have won for something! Like "Auntie Mame," years later.

Take away the Oscar for "Crash" and give it to "Brokeback Mountain", you haters, you...

take away from the honorary oscar from that rat Elia Kazan who destroyed lives by informing on various people more talented than he, and in spite of it all was honored by the "Academy" a collection of Fascists wearing Depends --

one thing popped into my head so hard i almost fell over, Forest Gump. The year of Pulp Fiction and the Shawshank Redemption, and Forest Gump wins???

This is a FABULOUS question!!!

Hmmmm.

Two words: Gwyneth Paltrow.

I nominate Cliff Robertson for Charly as the biggest offense. Put Braveheart on the list, and Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days, and Slumdog Millionaire. Also Judy Holliday, Yul Brynner, Charlton Heston, Susan Hayward, Liz Taylor's first, Sidney Poitier, Rex Harrison, John Wayne, Art Carney, Rocky, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Marlee Mattin, Jody Foster's two, Kathy Bates, Al Pacino, Geoffey Rush, and Lord of the Rings.

ANYTHING that Kevin Costner won for "Dances".

Michael Caine - THE CIDER HOUSE RULES

Tommy Lee Jones - THE FUGITIVE

Penelope Cruz - VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA

Judi Dench - SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

All wonderful actors, but those performances are just "Ehh".

Liz Taylor for "Butterfield 8." She only won becuse she'd gotten a tracheotomy or something.

Cate Blanchett for "The Aviator." She deserved it for other films.

Katharine Hepburn for "Morning Glory" and Bette Davis for "Dangerous." Far from their greatest work.

Kate Winslet for "The Reader." Eh.

Judy Holliday needs to give her Oscar to Bette Davis for All About Eve.

Ellen Burnstyn is waiting for Julia Roberts to give her the Oscar for Requiem Of A Dream.

Tom Hanks in Philadelphia needs to give it to Liam Neeson for Schindler's List.

Tom Hanks needs to give back his Oscar for Forrest Gump but nobody nominated deserved it (Freeman and Travolta were supporting roles nominated as lead actors simply to better the chances of their other cast-mates).

I love Bogie but the idea he got it for playing himself in The African Queen over Brando's Stanley Kowalski in retrospect looks terrible. Jack Lemmon also needs to split give his Oscar to Brando in Last Tango In Paris. He was fingered in that film and given the middle finger by the Academy for creating a scene the year before. James Whitmore as Truman and Nicholson in The Last Detail were better choices.

Cliff Robertson was the guy who started off the obsession with rewarding people for playing mentally retarded. Charly was a mess and a hideous adaptation of a heartbreaking book. That Oscar belongs to Peter O'Toole in The Lion In Winter.

Jack Nicholson needs to give his Oscar for As Good As It Gets to Matt Damon because Matt Damon as a brash math whiz asshat is more believable than Nicholson as himself.

God, I could write a book if I went on.

vodka stinger,
The Academy is full of self-indulgent Baby Boomers who were totally unaware of how negative the entire film is on the whole Baby Boomer experience as Forrest was completely unflappable up until Jenny's death by AIDS. Forrest Gump is a good time capsule film but nothing more.

Network, Ed Wood, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, Hoop Dreams (yes a doc but the gold standard), The Sum of Us, The Crow, Clerks, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Madness of King George, Reality Bites, Muriel's Wedding, The Lion King, Natural Born Killers, Bullets Over Broadway, all are better than that piece of crap.

Marisa Tomei!!!!

When Liz Taylor won for "Butterfield 8," Shirley MacLaine, nominated for "The Apartment," wailed, "I lost to a tracheotomy!"

Fashion plate Grace Kelly won over Judy Garland's galvanizing performance in "A Star is Born," because Kelly went drab, wore a sweater and let her hair go stringy. Big Deal.

All the directors who won over Hitchcock should cough up their gold.

And not even a nomination for Marilyn Monroe in "Bus Stop" and "Some Like It Hot"? For shame!

The Oscars have long been marred by their politicking and famous for giving stars statuettes for lesser performances after they lost for more worthy efforts.

Competition in the arts is just a popularity contest, a racket, a con.

Jonster's right, this is a good question.

Let's talk about 1940: I love Ginger Rogers but the thought of her winning the Oscar for Kitty Foil was a big mistake.

She was great dancer and good at light comedy but put her in a drama and it was a train wreck.

Among the others nominated that year were

Bette Davis, The Letter
Joan Fontaine, Rebecca
Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story
and
Martha Scott, Our Town

You tell me.

Let's talk about 1940: I love Ginger Rogers but the thought of her winning the Oscar for Kitty Foil was a big mistake.

She was great dancer and good at light comedy but put her in a drama and it was a train wreck.

Among the others nominated that year were

Bette Davis, The Letter
Joan Fontaine, Rebecca
Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story
and
Martha Scott, Our Town

You tell me.

Dear Mr. Musto

What's the use... this is a futile and meaningless cyber parlour game, I fail to see the point.

We all know it's not a popularity contest... we're not highly politicized Members of the Academy with axes to grind that can vote for our peers... WE DON'T HAVE A SAY... BUT IF I DID... I would definitely take back and melt the Oscar that Eyetalian actor won... Robert Benign... wait......................................'Google' said I meant to say Roberto Benigni who in 1999 won for best actor.

Putting aside my penchant for films dealing with the Holocaust, can you believe the title???

'Life is beautiful' - OH REALLY!!!

I'm still traumatized and I cringe, shudder whenever they replay his over the top antics before his acceptance speech.

You will remember him climbing over and standing on the backs of seats in front of him, applauding, cheering the audience and once on stage uttering "There must be some terrible mistake, I used up all my English!"

IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE!!!... so give it back PISA... wait...........................................'Google' said I meant to say 'PAESANO'.

Thank you
Debbie

I've got your answer, Mark. Bette Davis in "The Letter" over Ginger in "Kitty Litter."

Among many other things "The Letter" has the greatest opening sequence of all time.

And if you're not familair with it HAND IN YOUR GAY CARD!

sorry to offend the original blogger but Hilary Swank definitely should give that Oscar back for MDB! I would also nominate these others who had extremely lack lustre performances yet were honored with the Big Boy:

Gwyneth Paltrow-all four other nominees that year had stronger performances than her, especially Fernando (my first pick) & Cate (my second pick) who I could've easily seen winning that trophy. Even still, both Meryl & Emily both had much finer performances than Gwyneth's forced-down-your-throat Oscar campaigning much like Winslet's this past year. blah!

Kate Winslet-I really don't see all of the hullabaloo around this actress. She's good but rarely gives truly GREAT performances and her role in The Reader was exactly that, merely good. BUT...since she was "owed" an Oscar she got it. I think Leo, Hawkins or Thomas gave much finer and more detailed performances than her! Oh, and don't say Revolutionary Road should've been her Oscar role, she was HORRID in that! I was embarrassed for her.

Forrest Gump-one of the most overpraised films of all time. I believe Shawshank deserved this accolade hands down!

How Green Was My Valley-I understand Ford is a legendary director and did have a couple of brilliant scenes in this film, but Citizen Kane has stood the test of time! Guess we know how much politics play into these awards, huh?

Kirsten Scott Thomas and Sally Hawkins were not even nominated. Kate should have won for Clementine in Eternal Sunshine.... I give her credit for being fearless in using her body and also playing for lack of a better word, a total sociopath. She deserved to be nominated and Meryl did not (Sally Hawkins definitely was robbed of a nomination).

How Green Was My Valley is a joke to anybody with a grasp of how Welsh people sound like. I had no idea people from Wales sound like they are from Belfast. Citizen Kane, Suspicion, Sergeant York, and Maltese Falcon were all better films.

This may have well been the strongest year in 1967 and I love Rod Steiger but look who his competition was:

Warren Beatty - Bonnie and Clyde as Clyde Barrow
Dustin Hoffman - The Graduate as Benjamin Braddock
Paul Newman - Cool Hand Luke as Luke Jackson
Spencer Tracy - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner as Matt Drayton (posthumous nomination)

Should he have really won for In The Heat of The Night?

Robert Benigni also cannot be ignored whatsoever:

Tom Hanks - Saving Private Ryan as Captain John Miller
Ian McKellen - Gods and Monsters as James Whale
Nick Nolte - Affliction as Wade Whitehouse
Edward Norton - American History X as Derek Vinyard

Life Is Beautiful is like Forrest Gump in Italian with Nazis. Films like that are what Oscar eats up.

I loved the Farmer's Daughter! That would be the last Oscar I would take away! Totally cute movie specially w/ Ethel Barrymore in one of her best parts!

Take away Juliette Binoche for English Patient and give it to Bacall for MIrror gots two faces!

Harold Russell In "The Best Years of Our Lives." But you''d have to pull the trophy away from his hook, not his hand!!

Hands down, the worst, worst, WORST "Best" picture of all time (and that includes "Greatest Show On Earth" AND "Forrest Gump," in my opinion) has got to be "Crash". What the fuck was going on?? Has anyone seen, or re-seen that film recently? It is the most heavy-handed, proseltizing, Scientology-based-screed CRAP ever! Best Picture? That's the year I stopped watching the show or giving a shit WHO won....

Give one to Deborah Kerr.

Take Ginger Rogers' away for "Kitty Foyle" and give it back to her for everything else she's done.

And why did Ann Revere win for National Velvet?

Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfield.

The Best Years of Our Lives ages horribly with exception to Dana Andrews' understated PTSD. I usually watch Since You've Been Away to get my taste of life on the home front experience.

Crash is crap and as much as I like to rag on Scientology, Paul Haggis' piggy bank is not what made the film bad. It being a blatant rip-off of Do The Right Thing (not even nominated for Best Picture) and Altman. The only good character was Matt Dillon who was totally Archie Bunker meets Gillepsie (Carroll O'Connor's career essentially). No originality whatsoever in that film.

The Departed is terrible and shows Oscar tries to pay back people they snubbed no matter how crappy it is. Starts off great then you get bored then you get excited then you get bored and then you are wondering what is the whole point of the love triangle. Average mob film that was clustering three Chinese movies into one bloated, disjointed mess. The Queen was much better and even that probably would have been better served as a movie on HBO.

The OTHER "Crash" should have won the Oscar. Particularly for the climtic sequence where James Spader and Elias Koteas fuck the living shit out of each other.

I don't really care who gets Oscars, I just want my DVD of "Prospero's Books." Too weird for most, to awesome to be ignored.

I'd strip Forrest Gump and Heaven's Gate of any and all awards. Both films are right-wing circle-jerks, overstuffed with gawdawful lies.

The ten nominations thing is really going to screw up this upcoming year. This ain't 1939, should rich films in a single year will never happen again let alone picking the right one of the lot.

When Julie & Julia has a chance it is getting bad and I checked the fall previews. Shutter Island got moved back so Scorcese getting more undeserved awards has fallen through. But poor Leo. The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, and District 9 better be nominated. If any of those films are passed over for the latest Harry Potter movie or Bruno I will be royally pissed. I can take Nine and Where The Wild Things Are but not those films nominated just to draw in viewers.

I just realized Joseph Cotten in the poster. It occurred to me the man in some of the greatest pieces of cinema was not even nominated for an Oscar, no, not even for A Shadow Of A Doubt which for anybody nowadays would be hyped as the greatest performance in 20 years.

An Education will be nominated this year, as well as probably Inglourious Basterds and Hurt Locker. Now we need 7 more!!

Helen Hunt's Oscar for "As Good As It Gets" should go to Jodie Foster in "Contact", who was not even nominated.

Crash was embarrassingly bad in every way.

I loved Anne Bancroft in 'Miracle Worker' but I'm sorry- Bette Davis should have won for 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane'. That performance was a masterpiece that has stood the test of time. Every time I watch it, I see some new nuance in Bette Davis' performance.
Judy Garland over Grace Kelly but Judy pissed off MGM and they weren't about to let her win with this one.
Divine deserved Best Supporting Actor for 'Hairspray'. He created a role that will have fat boys dancing for years and years!
Richard Burton over John Wayne, it's only right.
Sure Elizabeth Taylor didn't get the Oscar for 'Butterfield 8'. She got it because she saw Death, slapped him, did an about face and came back to life looking incredible. She made the studio tons of money, which doesn't hurt either.

Bette Davis over Judy Holliday

Deborah Kerr over Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn over Simone Signoret [it was a supporting, not a lead perf in "Room at the Top"]

Barbra over Glenda Jackson

Judy over Rita Moreno

And Hilary Swank has 2 Oscars??? For what? A mediocre actress with the worst grin since Jennifer Garner.

Speaking of The Miracle Worker, I cannot really think that Patty Duke was in any way better than Marry Badham as Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird or Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate. Physically demanding for the geriatrics, maybe but Scout is somebody we fall in love with and Angela Lansbury is one of the great villains of cinema in that role.

In Liz Taylor's defense, she is ashamed for winning BUtterfield 8, calling it a "horrible movie" and knows the Oscar was out of pity. She deserved it for WAOVW. She deserved it for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Heck she deserved it Suddenly Last Summer too but somebody thought it was a good idea to pin Hepburn against her by raising Hepburn's status as lead actress. while her role is important, the entire story revolves around the traumatic even Catherine Holly witnessed her cousin Sebastien endure.

The Academy made a terrible mistake making James Dean lead actor in Giant when he appears so late in the film and goes on and off screen many times. Pivotal, yes, but a supporting player. His chances were not good facing his co-star Rock Hudson, Olivier, Brenner, and Sinatra as lead actors. Anthony Quinn in Lust For Life was hardly a stand-out, especially when Douglas' role was far more challenging and interesting(besides Don Murray deserved it for Bus Stop). He had a much better chance winning as a Supporting Actor. Jett Rink is a character you want to love but turn to hate because he has no idea how to love.

I'll say it again: take back Sean Penn's statue for his screaming-heterosexual take on Harvey Milk. I felt like I was watching 'I Am Sam 2'.

Mimicry is so overrated in Hollywood. Though Sean Penn's Harvey Milk was uncanny I found Frank Langella's bizarre, Shakespearean take on Nixon to be breathtaking as was the Terry Malloy-like portrayal of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler who dared to act like a low-life the entire film without apologizing.

ummmm... CMG... Jack Nicholson did NOT win for "A Few Good Men".

Take away Scofield to give to Burton for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", an indelible screen performance visually and... oh, the music of his voice.

"Crash" will be forgotten while "Brokeback" will live as a gorgeous sad film about gorgeous sad men.

Willem Dafoe should have the "Shadow of the Vampire" statue over Del Toro's for "Traffic".

Burt Lancaster deserved for "Atlantic City" over H Fonda for "On Golden Pond." Big time.

And Hitchcock shoulda won at least one damn time.

oops. I apologize CMG about the Nicholson comment. My haste to be cute led me to incorrectly correct you. Mea culpa.

And Madeleline Khan for "Paper Moon" over Tatum who gave a lead performance (in nearly every scene in the whole damn film). MK delivered one of the classic supporting perfomances of all time.

I'd also go with Diane Ladd for "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" over Ingrid Bergman for "Orient Express".

These apology awards and psuedo lifetime achievement Oscars for mediocre roles impede the credibility of Oscar. I'll keep watching until they get it right.

Good points, GG - but it's Madeline Kahn - she wasn't related to Genghis!

Apology accepted, GG.

I hate when maverick a/o independent movies have to settle to be nominated simply just for either one stand-out performance or the screenplay. Especially when the screenplay is not that strong. Juno (The Savages), Crash (Syriana or The Squid And The Whale), and Little Miss Sunshine (Pan's Labyrinth) are good examples of this. Bulworth and The Truman Show deserved deserved it over Shakespeare In Love. When Oscar wants to honor one film that is inoffensive and crowd-pleasing, they just never stop. Slumdog Millionaire a most recent example.

Speaking of Shakespeare In Love, Judi Dench's cameo is not worthy of Oscar. Kathy Bates in Primary Colors or Lynn Redgrave in Gods & Monsters.

GG you were right. Nicholson did NOT win for A Few Good Men. Gene Hackman won that year for Unforgiven.

Nicholson has won three times--for Cuckoo's Nest and As Good as It Gets (for lead) and Terms of Endearment (for supporting).

Halle Berry followed up her Oscar winning performance with CATGIRL. That's the best film she's done since winning the gold statue. Time to give it back.

And people! This one was most egregious!

Give Bette Midler the naked gold man for "The Rose" for goodness' sakes. A glorious debut performance. She showed more range in one song than Sally Field did in all of "Norma Rae".

SF was good in "Norma", but I think she won because all of the Academy are union members and this film celebrated union organizing.

Sally can keep her worthy one for "Places in the Heart", but let's just sit back and imagine how glorious Bette's acceptance speech would've been.

Take back Jimmy Stewart's Oscar for his bland non-performance in The Philadelphia Story and rightfully give it to Henry Fonda for The Grapes of Wrath. Same with Ginger Rogers' statue for the overrated Kitty Foyle - Joan Fontaine deserved it for Rebecca, she was so damned good.

Glenn Close was robbed by a simply awful Cher in "Moonstruck" and the wooden Jodie Foster in "Silence of the Lambs".