Bumped while voting is ongoing
I had such a fun time coming up with these comparisons last year, I couldn’t help myself but to do it again. Once again, I’m going to review a classic Best Picture Oscar winner or two, and I’m going to let all of you help me pick which one I go with. For each of the current nominees for that award, I’ve selected a previous winner that shares some key element with it.
The Nominees:
The Big Short:
Our apparent political heroes turn out to be just one more part of the whole circle of corruption in a ripped-from-the-headlines tale = All the King’s Men (1949)
Bridge of Spies:
Tom Hanks is the spirit of America = Forrest Gump (1994)
Brooklyn:
The lives of immigrants in 1950s New York, particularly one earnest, lovelorn shopgirl = West Side Story (1961)
Mad Max: Fury Road:
An un-Oscarly swerve into the action genre, with cutting-edge car stunts = The French Connection (1971)
The Martian:
A breezy adventure executed with state of the art technique, in which human cunning triumphs over the odds. It’s also too damn long and gives a huge number of famous actors virtually nothing to do = Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
The Revenant:
Lots of blood, and the thing most people know about it involves a liver being eaten = The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Room:
A single parent turns her (his) entire life over to the needs of her (his) darling moppet of son = Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Spotlight:
Plucky reporters go to whatever ends necessary to track down a story = It Happened One Night (1934)
My current aim is to review each day of Oscar weekend, February 27 and 28, so the top two vote-getters will both get reviewed. That means two votes per participant, too. The poll will close at 11:59 PM CST on February 20.