Two ?Best Picture? Oscars for 1966

[coolrob1955]

Two of my all time favorite movies were nominated in 1966 for the ?Best Picture? Oscar - ?A Man For All Seasons? and ?The Sand Pebbles?. Both movies were about the same thing basically - personal courage, making the right moral and ethical choices (as one sees it), and suffering the consequences. Both movies touched me equally. I personally would have awarded two ?Best Picture? Oscars that year.

 

Best wishes

Metairie Road

[JefCostello]

Blow Up.

 

The two movies you mentioned were both very good films, but I would say that Blow Up was the best English speaking film that came out that year, and probably the most important as well. I know it was a foreign film, but David Lean won Oscars for directing British films, so I don't believe in that barrier or excuse.

 

Now the very best movie that year was Andrei Rublev, but no way was a Russian film going to be nominated. British film is a different story.

 

Also, don't forget about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for that year. Another film that could have easily won the Oscar.

 

I do like your comparison though for the two films you mentioned, and hadn't really thought of that earlier.

 

Edited by: JefCostello on Apr 29, 2010 4:32 PM

 

Edited by: JefCostello on Apr 29, 2010 4:33 PM

[coolrob1955]

Can?t argue with your choices JefCostello. ?Blow Up? was a good movie and I have to admit I haven?t seen ?Andrei Rublev?. I?ll seek it out and watch it on your recommendation.

 

Also from ?66 two other little gems from England that should have been contenders - ?Georgy Girl? and ?The Family Way?. a movie almost unknown in the U.S. I love British kitchen-sink movies.

 

Also the Czech movie ?Closely Watched Trains? which was probably excluded, like ?Andrei Rublev? because of the cold-war mentality of the times. Was Czechoslovakia (try saying that when you?re drunk) part of the Soviet Bloc in ?66? I was only nine-years-old in 1966 and world politics wasn?t at the forefront of my mind.

 

Best wishes

Metairie Road

[JefCostello]

Oh there were plenty of fantastic foreign films that year.

 

Persona, The Good the Bad and the Ugly (can't believe I didn't mention it), and Au Hasard Balthazar also came out that year. Also, there was The Battle of Algiers and Closely Watched Trains as you mentioned. There were undoubtadly numerous others which I forgot to mention and may add later on when I remember.

 

The reason I mentioned Blow Up was because it was an English speaking film, and could have technically won the Oscar as other British productions had done before it.

 

These other great foreign films would never really have a chance based on Academy Award history. I mean, can you imagine a Spaghetti Western winning the Academy Award.

 

Not to sure about the Czech film industry in 1966. I think Russia invaded them in 1968. That was 15 years before I was born, though, so your memory is probably better than mine.