Alternate Oscars by Danny Peary

Alternate Oscars Reviews

• 
  Paul Bryant

  Could you guess that Oscars are not dished out based only on merit? I mean, golly gosh. Is that the universe tilting on its axis? I think so. So, you see, the best picture Oscar isn’t necessarily given to the best picture. Well, that’s what it says here. Our Danny is just so spiteful about the Oscarmeisters of the Hollywood Hills – he says that politics, guilt, score settling, sentiment, and an obsession with what their shrivelled souls and mis-shapen intellects perceived as “prestige” made them give Oscars to mostly the wrong movies and the wrong actors.
  
  So to give the most innocuous example, they would realise they should have given an Oscar to Actress A for this great role but they didn’t so they gave next year’s Oscar to Actress A, whatever rubbish she may have been in, as a way of saying oops, sorry ‘n’ all. So the right actor gets an Oscar but for the wrong role. Then, they say, aw shoot, we hear Actor B might be terminally ill and we never did give that useless gimp a gong but now he’s on his way out we kinda feel all mushy, he’s been in pictures since the 19th century so, okay, we’ll give him one for the last thing he did, even if it was unwatchably awful.
  
  So in this deeeelightful book Danny boy revisits all the Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars from 1927 to 1991 in this book (shame he’s never updated it) and awards his own Oscars to the right actors and actresses and the right movies, in his opinion, which is an opinion I for one respect.
  
  I have to assume (though he doesn’t make this explicit) that he’d watched all the nominated movies plus all the notable movies from each year which did not get nominated, otherwise how would he know. That’s a lot of watching movies! Anyhow, very occasionally he says the Academy got the choice correct, but mostly, they didn’t. No surprise!
  
  This sounds like a real fun thing that any movie fan could do in the privacy of their own home. But ticking off all the relevant movies is not easy. For example, take 1980 – best picture nominations were Ordinary People, The Elephant Man, Raging Bull, The Coalminer’s Daughter – yes, seen all of those – and Tess. Tess?
  
  
  
  Durn it, I missed that one. But looking at the nominations for best actor, I also missed Robert Duvall in The Great Santini, Jack Lemmon in Tribute and Peter O’Toole in The Stunt Man, and three other best actress nominated roles in three different movies. So it’s just not possible unless you dedicate your life to this insane pursuit. No time for one of those pesky jobs which a lot of people seem to think is so essential. They take up way too much time.
  
  I should also say that Danny’s detailed accounts of the movies and performances he does pick makes this book a great read for all you movie fans out there. Totally recommended.
• 
  Robert

  This book features its author's picks for Best Picture, Actor, and Actress from each year of the Oscars, starting with the first awards ceremony in the late 1920's through 1991 (the book was published in '93). Peary is a good, knowledgeable film writer and this is a fun exercise—we all have our picks for films and performances that we feel should have nabbed the gold, as well as long lists of stinky winners that outrageously won the day. It's an enjoyable (if not terribly consequential) tome; I would be interested to see a follow up, covering 1992 to the present day (I'd be particularly interested to see if Peary hated things like 1994's BP winner Forest Gump and 2005's Crash as much as I did); I also finished this with a new list of films to watch, and rewatch. Three out of 5.
• 
  Alonso

  I somehow had never gotten around to reading this volume by one of my favorite film critics, and
  Danny Peary brings the same depth and insight here that make his Cult Movies and Guide for the Film Fanatic books such essential reading. You certainly won't agree with every one of his choices, but you'll come away with lists of movies you need to see (and movies that Peary might convince you to re-evaluate). Here's hoping we get a new edition that gives us his post-1991 choices.
• 
  theduckthief

  "The first Academy Awards were given out in 1929. In my view, they got it wrong then, and with few exceptions they have gotten it wrong ever since. Although it was declared that awards would be bestowed based on merit only, that does not always seem to have been the case."
  
  Have you ever felt that an Oscar went to the wrong person or that an undeserving movie won Best Picture? If so, this is the book for you. Danny Peary takes the history of the Academy Awards from 1927-1991 and offers his take on Best Picture, Actor and Actress. He includes vintage photos as well as indepth descriptions of the movies plot and characters. Not only does he justify his choices, he also goes into detail about the history of the Academy Awards and why they made the choices they did. The truth behind some awards is far stranger than you might imagine.
  
  The thing I love best about this book is the amount of detail Peary puts into each year. He obviously knows movies, even going so far as to offring runners-up to his choice of winner. He sees things the average moviegoer wouldn't, analyzes scenes and character, digs up the riches they're hiding and puts them on display for us. Take this excerpt about his choice for Best Actor 1946, Jimmy Stewart from "It's a Wonderful Life":
  
  "Restless because he can't leave Bedford Falls, he does everything to expend energy, especially moving his hands and arms when talking. It's delightful when he finds Mary (Donna Reed) waiting at the house on their wedding night, amid a romantic setting, and is so stunned that he can't move his arms and must remain speechless. But at other times his arms swing wildly and he talks up a storm, makes speeches, argues with Potter, yells, screams, paces back and forth in front of Mary's house, runs through the streets, races up and down his stairwell, dances a wild Charleston with Mary, fights, jumps, dives into water, and on and on."
  
  The drawbacks are few and far between. Peary's book only runs until 1991, almost twenty years of movies are begging for his opinion. As well, this book is currently out of print so good luck getting your hands on a copy if your local library doesn't have it.
• 
  Professor

  Another oldy but goody from Danny Peary, in which he gives his choices for the Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress awards for the Oscars from their inception until 1990. Yes, some of Peary usual quirks (left wing politics, being very concerned with feminism while openly leering at actresses)are here, but overall it's a good book with some interesting alternate takes and a whole list of movies I will need to add to my "To See" list. Recommended for film fans. Warning, though, Peary doesn't believe in spoiler warnings, so read his reviews at your own risk.
• 
  Sarospice

  A great bathroom reader. The Oscars have lost all meaning but who hasn't debated their own WINNERS over the years. This book will make you want to see some performances you might have missed, reevaluate some you've loved, and maybe create your own awards!
• 
  Amy Qualls

  If you've ever contended that the Oscars were a political piece of crap, or if the Academy was incapable of recognizing a truly stellar performance without twenty years of hindsight, this is a book to look into. It provides some interesting suggestions on movies that were probably more influential (Citizen Kane, etc.) than the actual winners (How Green Was My Valley) were.
  
  Worth keeping around if you're a serious movie buff, but doesn't really have a lot of repeat-read value. Once absorbed, there is no more great subtext to get. Factoids are factoids.
• 
  Bob

  A wonderful way to discover films you might not have seen, and also to come up with your own "best of's" for a particular year.
• 
  Glen Engel-Cox

  This provides a good history of film through the years in excellent page-long essays, as well as catching the reader up on the critical classics of the medium.