Robbery at the Oscars

Rating: 10/10 (30 July 2010)

The first time I remember a terrible Oscar Best Picture result was in 1988 when the excellent but schmaltzy Rainman, beat the far superior Mississippi Burning in most categories.
A travesty of justice - surely it couldn't happen again?
In 1997, it did happened again but this time it got a lot worse!
Titanic got the thumbs up with its big budget and cute love story when in reality LA Confidential, a gritty film which is almost anonymous by comparison, should have walked it. Certainly one of the best and most intelligent films of the nineties by far, this movie included four of the best acting performances of the decade. Kim Basinger proved that she can act (and in doing so did get an Oscar), whilst a relatively unknown Australian Soap Opera Actor by the name of Guy Pearce waltzed onto the big screen for the first time and stole the show. Add to the mix, Russell Crowe as the cop who dishes out the beatings and the sublime Kevin Spacey and you get an intelligent American thriller right out of the top drawer.
I saw this feel almost by accident as it was that poorly promoted and yet if I had a top 10, LA Confidential would be a 'must have'. Its like a drug - as the plot twists and turns the viewer is literally waiting for the next fix to arrive. And it does in spades.
There are times when the Academy gets their selections correct. There are other times they get it catastrophically wrong. This is one of those times. Give an Oscar at the time to an unfashionable, unknown Australian who has graduated from Soap Land? - you can almost hear their screams!!