BEST Best Picture Ever: Round One, Match #6

                                                      versus

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional info here (and cast your vote).  In my opinion, Platoon didn't deserve a spot in the sweet 16.  I'm looking for a Casablanca landslide (possibly being favored on at least 85% of the ballots).

Friday's result?  Lawrence of Arabia (68.9%) defeats It Happened One Night (31.1%).  Next up for David Lean's epic film?  The winner of Annie Hall v. The Apartment.

Comments

[Colin Miller]

I like "Platoon" a lot, but:

1. I think that it was only Oliver Stone's second best war-related film of 1986, with "Salvador" being his better effort. The way I see it, the latter film featured a career-best performance by James Woods.

2. I don't think that "Platoon" was the defining war movie of the 1980s. I think that honor belongs to Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," which was released the next year. I remember a bunch of us getting a letterbox VHS of "Jacket" my first year in college and playing it on a 24 hour loop in our common room. Nobody complained. The same can't be said for when someone got the idea to play David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on a 24 hour loop.

[Kelly Anders]

Yes, with all due respect, I think "Apocolypse Now" (1979) would have been a more likely choice, but Coppola's work was already included in the contest (e.g., "The Godfather"), so they probably wanted something from another legendary auteur and opted for something from Stone. In my opinion, this is no contest. I voted for "Casablanca."

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

The poster for Casablanca should have been in black and white.