I think Serkis would have deserved a nomination, but to say the on-screen performance was “all Serkis” is just wrong. No matter how much his award marketing team tries to portray characters like Gollum and Caesar as entirely his performance, they simply are not. Animators’ work was what ended up on screen, and it was most certainly not just them mindlessly using the mo-cap footage.
Serkis along with performances like Ellen Degeneres as Dory in Finding Nemo and Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian sure make a case that an award category for vocal performance should be a thing.
Spotlight deserved its win. Not that a couple other choices wouldn’t have been good too. But I generally don’t like bio-drama/historical-drama films, and loved Spotlight.
Come to think of it, the only other recent-ish-history-drama I liked was The Normal Heart. Maybe it’s just Ruffalo that makes them tolerable. Maybe I should check out Foxcatcher…
Blade Runner should have had more…Best Supporting for Rutger Hauer, Best Director for Ridley Scott at minimum. It got shoved out by E.T. and Tootsie of all things.
It was eligible (the current rules say, “In an animated film, animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time”), and I was also shocked when it wasn’t nominated. It is possible that there is just some sort of “Lego backlash”; the only episode of The Simpsons entered in the Animated Program category that was not nominated was its Lego one.
You never really know for sure what movie is going to have legs and which ones will be quickly forgotten. Does anyone talk about The English Patient these days?
Looking at the nominees for movies released in 2022 I don’t see any actor that did a better job than Eddie Redmayne in The Good Nurse. Fantastic job but maybe too subtle and quiet to get accolades.
Glory is always my go-to in this arena. Wasn’t nominated as Best Picture, buy in my opinion it was miles better than Driving Miss Daisy, which won that year.
At least Denzel Washington won Best Supporting Actor for his role in Glory, and the film got Best Cinematography.
When I left the theater for Arrival I thought for sure that Amy Adams would win for best actress. I was shocked when she wasn’t even nominated, especially where she was nominated for the Golden Globes and BAFTAs. I can’t point to an actress that should have been excluded, but it was a great performance.
First: Jeff Goldblum should have been nominated for Best Actor for The Fly. The film being horror/sci-fi worked against it, of course, but I wonder if it would have helped if more people had made the connection, that it was really a metaphor for AIDS? Think of it: he makes one error of judgment, and his body starts falling apart from the inside out. And no one knows a way to cure him, and anyway, he has to hide from the world because he looks so freakish. And just playing an afflicted person is often enough to get on the ballot.
Anyway, 1985 was William Hurt for Kiss of the Spider Woman. Also-rans were Harrison Ford for Witness, James Garner for Murphy’s Romance, Jack Nicholson for Prizzi’s Honor, and Jon Voight for Runway Train. So boot out either Garner or Nicholson, and give the Oscar to Voight.
Second, Tom Cruise should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Rain Man. Like Saint_Cad said about Denzel’s character in Philadelphia, Charlie has an arc, while Raymond is the same person from start to finish. Because that’s the point: it’s not about Raymond’s autism; it’s about Charlie adjusting to and accepting it.
So 1988 was Kevin Kline for A Fish Called Wanda. Also-rans: Alec Guinness for Little Dorrit, Martin Landau for Tucker: The Man and His Dream, River Phoenix for Running on Empty, and Dean Stockwell for Married to the Mob. Guinness can go; he had Best Actor for Bridge on the River Kwai, and a lifetime award prior to this. Cruise can win, or Kline can still win; I always like to see performances, in something other than a heavy drama, rewarded.
There do seem to be quite a few Best Picture winners whose cultural and critical cachet dropped like a rock in the decades after their wins, often seeming rather lightweight and insubstantial in retrospect, esp. in comparison with the competition which often gained stature over time.
Shakespeare in Love
Forrest Gump
Dances with Wolves
Out of Africa
Terms of Endearment
Chariots of Fire
Ordinary People
Kramer vs. Kramer
Early 80’s seemed esp. hit by this syndrome, esp. in comparison with the winners in the '70’s.
It’s unworthy of the award in and of itself. But what burns is, it beat out The Color Purple. Which, as you presumably know if you’re in this thread, got beat out in every one of the numerous categories it was nominated in.
FFS, Spielberg directed two non-actors (at the time) to Oscar nominations. That doesn’t get him Best Director? And I’ve never heard of anyone making a musical based on Out of Africa.
Id heard that about King Kong, too. I got the bit about Cavalcade being his favorite from the Wikipedia page. Possibly the one who contributed that had Cavalcade and King Kong mixed up.
It doesn’t alter my point – whether it was a favorite of Hitler’s or not, Cavalcade is still a the answer to a trivia question, not the monument that King Kong has become.