Once Upon a Time in the West
As a Scorsese loyalist, much like any made man, I can never pay respect to a film that robbed a Best Director Oscar (1980 Academy Awards) from Marty for his tremendous work on Raging Bull. The criminality of the Academy's heinous decision wreaks of the sordid criminality present in Henry Hill's breach of omertá in Goodfellas. The mafia doesn't look too kindly on Ordinary People. I'm sorry Robert Redford. As much as I love your work, especially in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I can't grant you my "O" spot. Kurt Russell's performance in Overboard is priceless, but the film is far from flawless. For the record, I'm a big fan of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's films (especially the first), but they don't garner placement either. So that leaves us with a double whammy of Once Upon a Times from Sergio Leone—Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America—the irreverent One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman), and the amazing, award-winning film that bequeathed future generations, with an eternal nugget of wisdom, about almost bein' a contenda, Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront. Oh, and Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003) is terrific, but I'm a sucker for spaghetti westerns.
