While I enjoy Nashawaty's work and concur that both E.T. and Tootsie are more watchable than Gandhi, I disagree with his comments concerning last year's winner, The King's Speech.
Nashawaty writes: "If you believe the Academy's gotten hipper, here's why you're wrong: The King's Speech, a perfectly fine upper-crusty period piece that could have been made anytime in the past five decades, bested The Social Network, which showed us how he live now. Wrong again, Oscar."
Best Picture winners are suppose to be timeless, Chris. Classics. Films that as you so poignantly put it, "could have been made anytime in the past five decades." The Social Network, a rather cold and impersonal dated tale with no likeable characters, may indeed shows us how we live today but is anybody going to care about it tomorrow? Probably not.
They'll care about Schindler's List, The Godfather, Bridge on River Kwai, Unforgiven and The Kings Speech, undated, eternal films that show us who we are now, as well as where we have been.
