Inspired by the thread on Joaquin Phoenix losing the Academy Awards twice, actors/actresses/movies/etc. did not received an Oscar that was richly deserved. Should there be rules? OK . . . you can list up to three in order of most screwed to least screwed. I’m not much of a movie historians so mine are pretty recent. I’ll go first:
Val Kilmer in Tombstone. THE BEST performance of Doc Holliday EVER and he steals the scene everytime without even trying and he wasn’t even nominated.
Saving Private Ryan. There are a few years where a couple a great films are up for best picture and you can argue back and forth or in hindsight maybe one film stands out 10 years later (Star Wars v. Annie Hall). But SPR losing to Shakespeare in Love?! WTF?!
Kathy Bates, Brenda Blethyn, Rachel Griffiths, Lynn Redgrave for 1999 Best Supporting Actress. If I had to pick one it would be Lynn Redgrave, but the point of this choice is that Dame Judy Dench won the award playing a character done much better that year by Cate Blanchette and was on screen for ONLY 8 MINUTES. That’s a cameo, not a role.
From my significant other (a movie buff par excellance who runs an annual Oscar Party).
Val Kilmer in Tombstone. See above.
Lauren Bacall in The Mirror Has Two Faces. Juliette Bonoche won for the English Patient so I disagree with my SO about how screwed Lauren was. She contends that Lauren has never an Oscar and this would have been a perfect time to give her an award for her body of work.
Marty Scorsese losing Best Director AND Best Picture (for Goodfellas) to Kevin Costner (for Dances With Wolves) in 1990. What a fucking mockery.
Both Pulp Fiction AND Shawshank Redemption losing Best Picture to freakin’ insipid Forrest Gump in 1994. I don’t care which one should have won – they are both amazing movies, and both way better than Forrest Gump.
That was pretty much the last straw for me. Usually my favorite movie of the year gets nominated for Best Screenplay (and usually wins it), but the Forrest Gump incident made me lose all respect for the Oscars.
I actually thought they made the right decision. SPR might be the more “important” film, but quite frankly, after the first battle, it was, as Bill Goldman puts it, “Hollywood Horsesh*t”. There is nothing in the last three quarters that makes it any different than an episode of Combat or Tour of Duty. However if they had released Band of Brothers as a film, then there would have been a contest.
On the other hand, SIL was about as perfectly cast and written as a romantic comedy can get. Given that 99% of Rom-coms are written like a McKee checklist, SIL managed to be surprising, romance, funny and conveyed a real love of the process of creating. Not to forget that at the same time it’s also of and about the Romeo and Juliet story, without being too obvious about it.
As has been said every time this thread gets started (and I think we’re early this year), Judy Garland not winning the Oscar for “A Star is Born” was the greatest robbery since Brink’s.
I can see Pulp Fiction, but honestly, I have never in my life understood why people think The Shawshank Redemption is such a life-changing movie. It had its moments; it was also glurgy and predictable, just like its spiritual successor, “The Green Mile.” It didn’t even deserve to be nominated, whereas Forrest Gump did.
I think what you need to understand is that (a) the Academy Awards are a popularity contest, and (b) It is flatly, utterly impossible to devise a system that would give the awards to whomever deserved them, because there simply isn’t any way to define that.
Personally, I think “Forrest Gump” was a sensational movie, and “The Shawshank Redemption” was pretty good but nothing special. I loved “Saving Private Ryan” too but on what logical or empirical basis do you claim it was a better movie than “Shakespeare in Love”? Because it was about soldiers? Well, who gives a shit? You’re not going to give the Oscar to a war movie every year, are you? It wasn’t any better acted. It was a more technically impressive achievement in some ways - the cinematography and editing were astonishing. But in other ways it was a weaker movie - it wasn’t nearly as well written, IMHO, inasmuch as Saving Private Ryan had a number of very questionable plot decisions that could have been far better planned out. The acting in SPR was no better. Why’s it a better movie?
Anduril complaints about Hilary Swank beating Annette Bening twice. that sure does suck if you’re Annette Bening, a lovely woman who’s been a fine actress for a long time, but I’ve seen all four movies in question and if you had forced me to vote, I’d have voted for Hilary Swank, too, both times. On the other hand, it wouldn’t been a pretty grudging vote because how do you make that call, anyway? If someone else thinks Annette Bening should have won both times who’m I to argue with them? Who’s to say who’s right?
Why is my opinion and less valid than yours, and so, why should I believe you when you say that Oscar was a mockery? Don’t you think maybe the entire concept is silly?
Your opinion is certainly less valid than mine precisely because it runs counter my opinion. Moreover, you are wrong and I’m right. Objectively speaking, Annette Benning was so much better on both of the movies she was in contention for the Oscar. How so? Because of the validity of my opinion - again basing on the second premise that I’m right and you’re wrong (some such property of equality).
I think Quiz Show deserved to win in 1994. And the fact that Paul Giamatti wasn’t even nominated for his role in Sideways continues to confound me to no end.
2002 - Gangs of New York - when Daniel Day-Lewis did not win for his portrayal of Bill the Butcher, I wanted to take a flamethrower to the entire academy.
I also recognize that this is an opinion shared by virtually no one. It was an incredibly strong field that year, so I can’t really say that any one movie actually got screwed…even Four Weddings and a Funeral, though much derided, is an absolutely excellent film (that stupid scene in the rain notwithstanding). Each of the four runner-up nominees would have been a vastly superior choice to the saccharine Forrest Gump.
Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole, who were both nominated for the Best Actor Oscar in “Becket”, were also both nominated for that award six other times. Neither of them ever won. No other actors or actresses have been nominated as many times without winning.
3 Kings. Despite being one of the best films of 1999, it didn’t receive a single Academy Award nomination for anything. Completely skunked, even though it was a strong candidate for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.
Alfred Hitchcock. Six nominations, no wins. Mostly due to prejudice against his type of movies (The Director’s Guild also passed over him).
I agree with this. And it reminds me that O Brother Where Art Thou?, perhaps one of the most immaculately crafted (and funniest) movies of the last twenty-five years, was also severely shorted in Oscar nominations.
LA Confidential should’ve won over Titanic. I’ll admit that Titanic was a good looking film and while the special effects were first rate, the story was just OK and the acting ranged from merely presentable to slightly better than presentable. However, LA Confidential was far superior in both plot and acting. I figured out who would live and die in Titanic from the trailer, I had no idea what was going to happen in Confidential until I saw it.
And though I liked Judy Holiday in Born Yesterday I think that Gloria Swanson should’ve won Best Actress that year for Sunset Blvd.
And why Barbara Stanwyck never won an Oscar is beyond me.
{Slightly OT} I still don’t get what the big deal about that movie was. I saw it when it came out, partly because of the good reviews, and I was underwhelmed. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t think it was that great either.{/Slightly OT}
Heath Leger and Jake Gyllenhaal not winning for “Brokeback Mountain,” and BBM not winning Best Picture. Best performances I have ever seen in a movie, bar none. Best movie I have ever seen. “Crash” was not. “Crash” was not a pimple on BBM’s ass.
The problem with the awards is that any member of the academy can vote, whether they have watched all the movies or not. That is why you see actors winning for roles that do not deserve to win because they missed out before- think John Wayne, Al Pacino, Humphrey Bogart. They all won for lesser roles. They should have won in previous roles.
Many people have suggested that the acadmey has official screenings of all the movies. And only members that have watched all movies in that category are able to vote.
Ghandi beat E.T. for Best Film…seriously, who has ever watched Ghandi twice? Or since then, for that matter? Granted, E.T. was “popular”, but not a reason to not vote for it, as often happens with films nominated for Oscars.
Speaking of which - I saw Crash and thought it was good, but Brokeback was far superior. Which film will go down in history as a milestone in cinema?