Il Postino (1995) - Michael Radford

The 90's were the dominance of Miramax. Many films were promoted to the point of absurdity, and quite a few decent films were given enough publicity to garner serious award attention. Il Postino was the first foreign language film to be nominated for best picture in over two decades, and I would have been all too pleased if another film had broken the drought. There's nothing bad about the film, but there's nothing great. A similar wtf moment came in 2000 when Chocolat got a best picture nomination. Love and poetry and the awakening of a simple mind towards political activity is all fine and dandy, but this "life lesson" type of @#%$ is far too pasteurized to have any real impact. Still I'd take this over Apollo 13 and Sense and Sensibility, so hardly the worst film to be nominated that year. However 1995 was a remarkably better year than the Academy would lead us to believe.

*Il Postino was nominated for best picture, best director (Radford), best actor (Massimo Troisi), best adapted screenplay. It won for best dramatic score. Curious that neither this, The Emigrants, or Cries and Whispers received a best picture nomination without winning the foreign language Oscar.