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10 best Best Picture winners
Published: 3/2/2009 4:27 PM
Last Modified: 3/2/2009 4:27 PM

In March 2002, the Tulsa World entertainment staff played a cinematic parlor game and selected the 10 best Academy Award winners for best picture. Our choices were as follows:
1. The Godfather
2. Casablanca
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. The Godfather, Part II
5. The Bridge on the River Kwai
6. On the Waterfront
7. Schindler's List
8. Gone With the Wind
9. It Happened One Night
10. Annie Hall
I was reminded of these selections recently when the staff for movie-rating Web site Rotten Tomatoes compiled the same top 10, based purely on their Tomatometer ratings (critics posting either that a film was "Fresh" or "Rotten").
The Rotten Tomatoes results were as follows:
1. The Godfather
2. All About Eve
3. On the Waterfront
4. Rebecca
5. Marty
6. Lawrence of Arabia
7. The Godfather, Part II
8. An American in Paris
9. Annie Hall
10. The French Connection

What struck me was that each of RT's first five choices were rated at 100 percent, and "Lawrence of Arabia" was the first deviation at 98 percent, derived from ratings from 56 different critics: 55 saying "Fresh," one soul tallying "Rotten." It was the late Bosley Crowther, New York Times film critic from 1940 to 1967, who kicked sand in the face of "Lawrence": "It reduces a legendary figure to conventional movie-hero size amidst magnificent and exotic scenery but a conventional lot of action-film cliches."
Ah, well, there's one in every crowd, they say.
It seems impossible. How could anyone say that "Lawrence of Arabia" is rotten? How could anyone say much the same about "The Godfather, Part II," you ask? Vincent Canby of the New York Times found a way, the only critic of 55 to wish that Michael Corleone sleep with the fishes.
"It's a second movie made largely out of the bits and pieces of Mr. Puzo's novel that didn't fit into the first. It's a Frankenstein's monster stitched together from leftover parts. It talks. It moves in fits and starts but it has no mind of its own."
I can only imagine Canby being confused, and these were his thoughts of "The Godfather, Part III."
And finally this of No. 11 for Rotten Tomatoes, "Gone With the Wind," from critic Richard Schickel, long of Time magazine and one of only two of 59 Rotten Tomatoes critics who doesn't give a damn about Scarlett and Rhett.
"On the whole," he sniffed, "I thought the picture was okay."
Of a film for which no element is understated, this would seem to be the analytical flippancy of the last 70 years.

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I See Movies for Free

“I was born a poor, black child” … not me, actually, but Steve Martin’s character in the “The Jerk.” That absurd opening line is just one of the absurd number of film facts, quotes and minutiae contained in movie critic Michael Smith’s brain, at his disposal to toss out on a moment’s notice. It’s a key requirement as Tulsa World film critic to know these things. Michael learned a few other life facts along the way (seven years as a Crystal’s Pizza & Spaghetti manager) before attempting journalism and joining the Tulsa World in 1996, where he’s covered everything from a school shooting in Fort Gibson to a tornado in Stroud to witnessing an execution. A little community theater coverage was sprinkled in there, too. Movies engender many of his happiest memories, from standing in line for “Star Wars” and “Grease” at the Southroads Cinema to the James Bond and Pink Panther movies that always premiered at the enormous Continental Theater.

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Past Articles By Michael Smith

2/16/2013		Broken Arrow movie theater moves to discount showings
2/15/2013		Review: 'Amour'
2/15/2013		Review: 'A Good Day to Die Hard'
2/15/2013		Review: 'Beautiful Creatures'
2/14/2013		Review: 'Quartet'
2/14/2013		Shirley MacLaine to speak at Osage Casino
2/14/2013		Weekly rewind: February 14
2/14/2013		REVIEW: 'Beautiful Creatures'
2/12/2013		Belgian best picture hopeful 'Amour' opens in Tulsa on Friday
2/10/2013		'Die Hard' marathon at AMC Southroads on Wednesday ends with new film
2/9/2013		Review: 'Identity Thief' a stupid movie from stupid idea
2/8/2013		Oscar audit: Critics choices for best picture hold up over time

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