"Today we celebrate our Independents Day!"
That was what everyone was saying when the nominations were announced in 1996. Jerry Maguire was the only Best Picture nominee from a "non-independent" studio, but if you look at the nominees they don't really seem that odd. You have a comedy, a Coen Brothers film, a biopic of an artist with mental illness, a British drama and a big bloated epic. Seems like an Oscar race to me. I think what they were saying is there wasn't that big studio film that came pre-packaged with "Oscar Movie" written all over it and there wasn't a studio movie that they could turn into an Oscar movie like Braveheart from the previous year. All the prestige pictures from the studios fizzled out quickly like The Crucible and Michael Collins and Sleepers, they're fine films but it's hard to drum up excitement over them. I don't like this Oscar year specifically because of The English Patient. One of the greatest films of the 90s or any other decade was right under your nose and you went with the big boring 3 hour movie about a guy with burns on his face.
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE
BEST ACTOR
5. Woody Harrelson - The People Vs. Larry Flynt - I remember thinking at the time that it was cool that Woody Boyd from Cheers is now an Oscar nominated actor but after watching the movie I have to say that I just don't like this performance. Harrelson plays Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, who fought against the courts to allow him to peddle his porn. I didn't like the film itself, it takes everything I hate about biopics and combines that with telling the story of a guy that's a piece of shit to begin with. Harrelson does an impression of Flynt while never really creating a character. Now, if this nomination was for his performance in Kingpin, I would be all about giving him the win.
4. Ralph Fiennes - The English Patient - This is like nominating Lawrence Of Arabia and not nominating Peter O'Toole. Fiennes has to come along for the ride. I liked his performance even if the movie was bloated and full of itself. Fiennes plays the titular patient who is discovered with burns over 90% of his body and then we see his story play out in flashback. I disliked the movie but Fiennes is worth watching for his honest and raw performance.
3. Geoffrey Rush - Shine - Shine is a biopic about David Helfgott, a piano prodigy as a child who suffered a mental breakdown. Rush plays Helfgott, so you would assume that he is the lead role but he's really not. Noah Taylor plays Helfgott as a teenager and through the majority of the film. Rush is really only in about 30 minutes of the movie. To compare, in 2016 Dev Patel was nominated in the supporting category for Lion for playing the main character at a different age with probably more screen time. That aside, Rush is so good that he feels like a lead role, even if he's not. He is playing a man who can barely function in normal society because of his condition but he is able to pull all of his focus together when he's sitting in front of a piano. Rush actually studied piano to play the part which is incredibly respected. Still, don't think I can vote for him in this category just because of his screen time.
2. Tom Cruise - Jerry Maguire - This is just an incredibly delightful film. Cruise plays Jerry Maguire, a sports agent who does the unthinkable, he starts caring about his clients. He gets fired when he has a mental breakdown of sorts and e-mails out a personal manifesto. He starts his own agency with the one client who decides to stick with him and he goes on a journey where he finds love, respect and a purpose in life. Cruise is just being Cruise here, but he's so good at it. I never buy him when he's in movies like Born On The Fourth Of July where he's capital A acting and trying to get into a character. Cruise isn't an actor, he's a movie star. The same way Cary Grant was always great, and he never had to be anything other than Cary Grant. Cruise just has a natural screen presence that makes us identify with him whether he's fighting mummies, flying dangerous stunt missions or just talking to a child about the weight of the human head.
1. Billy Bob Thornton - Sling Blade - What makes a good performance? That's a question that doesn't have an easy answer. Different movies and characters resonate with different audiences differently. There is one way to tell if a performance works though and that is when it becomes a parody of itself. Thornton completely transforms himself to become Karl Childers, a mentally challenged man just released from an institution for murder. He killed a man who was being bad, not for revenge or self defense but because the man he killed was bad and he thought this was the appropriate way of dealing with the situation. Now he's free and moving back to his hometown. He is an isolated man that people don't know how to handle. He forms a friendship with a young boy and certain events happen that make him question whether he should kill again. He's the little voice inside all of our heads that works on impulse, only Karl doesn't have any other voices telling him not to act on those impulses. It's an incredible performance that became an impression based on the voice and the movements, like Don Vito Corleone or Raymond Babbitt or Forrest Gump. Thornton created it though and definitely gets my vote here.
You don't have to play a character with a physical or mental handicap to win an Oscar but it sure helps. Tom Cruise gives a great Tom Cruise performance but his character isn't mentally challenged, crippled or burnt so it's hard to vote for him. I understand why Rush was the favorite to win but he's kind of a supporting actor in the film. The movie is completely about his character but he only plays the character for roughly 1/3 of the film. Thornton may have cancelled himself out by writing, directing and starring in his film. He won the screenplay award so he didn't really need 2 Oscars for the same movie but he is incredible in the film and commands the screen for the entire running time.
BEST ACTRESS
4. Diane Keaton - Marvin's Room - This movie has "Oscar-bait" written all over it. Diane Keaton has leukemia and is need of a bone marrow transplant. She hasn't talked to her sister in years and her sister's son just got out of a mental hospital because he tried to burn the house down. The grandfather is senile and dying. The family connects because of tragedy and overcomes their obstacles. Blah, blah, blah. I love Diane Keaton but question why she got the nomination. Meryl Streep plays her sister and, not that she needed another nod, arguably gives the better performance. Keaton is more of the straight character in a house full of loonies. She does have the terminal illness though so I guess it makes sense that they included her.
3. Emily Watson - Breaking The Waves - If you really like Lars Von Triers films I can't help but think you might be a tad pretentious. I can understand enjoying sitting through this film but I can't imagine sitting through it twice or wanting to seek out another movie from the same director. Watson plays a woman who gets married young and she loves her husband, is very religious, talks to God and is all around a bit eccentric. Her husband gets into an accident and is left paralyzed. He is upset that he can't make love to his wife so he asks her to sleep with another man and then come back and tell him about it. She's conflicted at first but then rationalizes that these are her husband's wishes so God would want her to do it. I just don't like the look of the film, it's not pleasing to my eyes and there are pacing problems. I can respect the performance by Watson though even if she's trapped in a film I don't particularly care for. She is really amazing here and this is an intense and raw performance where she gets put through the ringer, like when she give an old man a handjob on the bus and then pukes.
2. Brenda Blethyn - Secrets & Lies - Blethyn is a working class English woman who spends most of her days smoking, drinking and crying until she is tracked down by the woman she gave up for adoption years ago. The girl is also black which throws her for a loop. Blethyn is so tragically funny in this movie. The humor comes from how bad her life is and you feel bad for laughing but she just nails the performance.
1. Frances McDormand - Fargo - Fargo is a perfect film and McDormand is at the center of it as Marge Gunderson, a pregnant Minnesota police chief investigating a roadside homicide that leads her to uncovering a fraudulent kidnapping plot. She's like a pregnant Sherlock Holmes with a goofy accent. It's so much fun to watch her figure out the mystery.
McDormand can be considered a supporting character but she is so good in the film and the movie is my favorite of the films nominated. Based on performance alone the vote is between McDormand, Watson and Blethyn and so the tie breaker comes down to my favorite actress and my favorite film. McDormand deserves an Oscar more than the other two based on career to this point and she's in my favorite film so this is a no contest decision for me. Do I vote for Fargo or a movie I didn't like as much?
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
5. James Woods - Ghosts Of Mississippi - I love James Woods. This movie is pretty bad. If he was actually as old as the character he plays I may consider voting for this but instead he is under pounds and pounds of ridiculous make-up to make him look 40 years older than he really is. He plays Byron De La Beckwith, the man who murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evars in 1963, got away with it, bragged about it for 30 years, and is now facing trial again for the murder because of new evidence. He's really only in two scenes. We see him once as a younger man committing the murder, once on the stand and once in the bathroom gloating to Alec Baldwin. He's fine in the role and I want to vote for him because he's James Woods but this field is too crowded, the movie isn't good and he's not in it that much.
4. Armin Mueller-Stahl - Shine - The movie is about David Helfgott, a piano prodigy who suffered a mental breakdown. All of his mental issues pretty much stem from his overbearing and domineering father played by Mueller-Stahl. It's a really great character because he's essentially the villain of the film but he is treated as just a flawed man. He wants the best for his son so he wants the boy to learn the hardest piano pieces and when his piano teacher says that he should start with something simpler, Mueller-Stahl doesn't even think of that as an option. His boy is going to be the best pianist so he should learn the best pieces. He pushes his son too hard and his son suffers because of it. It's a really good performance and never gets to that moment that you expect in movies where he softens and tells his son he is sorry. He'd be a decent winner, I'm glad he got a nomination, but this field is just too crowded.
3. Edward Norton - Primal Fear - This is not a good film but Edward Norton is fantastic in it. I like when the Oscars reward a good performance in a not so good film. Richard Gere stars as a high profile lawyer who is more concerned about how he looks than whether his clients are innocent or guilty. Norton plays a meek, stuttering altar boy who is accused of murdering an archbishop. Gere takes his case and finds out that Norton has a split personality. One is psychotic and proud of committing the murder, the other has no memory of anything that happened. Norton gets to play 2 roles here which, spoiler alert, turn out to really be only one role. This was his breakout year. He had this film and The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Everyone Says I Love You so it's a nice "Welcome to the club" kind of nomination.
2. Cuba Gooding, Jr. - Jerry Maguire - Tom Cruise plays a sports agent who only has one client left. That client is wide receiver Rod Tidwell, played by Gooding. Cuba is insanely energetic in this performance. He's incredible and is the bright spot of every scene he's in. If his career didn't fizzle out immediately after his Oscar win and if William H. Macy wasn't in this category he would definitely get my vote.
1. William H. Macy - Fargo - This is my favorite nominated performance of the year. Macy plays Jerry Lundergaard, a Minnesotan who owns a car dealership who orchestrates his wife's kidnapping. He hires the kidnappers to collect the ransom from his father-in-law but, of course, things go really really wrong. Macy is brilliant here, most of his scenes involve him lying so we are seeing all sides to his character at once. We see him crafting his lies as he's telling them then trying to figure out how to make the lie stick. It's a perfect performance in a perfect film.
So, it's a bit of category fraud to have Macy here. He is the lead in the film and if I'm going to complain about Geoffrey Rush winning lead for a supporting performance, I should be equally upset about this. For some reason Macy being here just feels kinda right even if he does have more screen time than Frances McDormand. Macy just feels like an actor who should be in this category. Arguably he's the lead in Shameless but just fits in with the ensemble. He's the living definition of a supporting actor. I would be voting for Macy even if he ended up in the supporting actress category, I love his performance that much. Cuba was a fine choice, even if he is a distant distant 2nd choice for me, and gave one of the best acceptance speeches in Oscar history. It will all work out if Macy ends up winning one eventually. If he never wins an Oscar we can all look back at this year as a terrible decision.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
4. Juliette Binoche - The English Patient - Binoche plays the nurse who is tending to Ralph Fiennes's burns. She's kind of the main character in the movie, she shouldn't be, but she is. There will be flashbacks to Fiennes and Thomas, you know, the characters we care about, and then Binoche will go off with Willem Dafoe and Naveen Andrews. Remember when I said this movie was way too long? Binoche's subplot is what should have been cut or given its own film. She's quite good in the movie, she's a fantastic actress, but she should have been the lead in her own movie rather than shoehorned into this one.
3. Marianne Jean-Baptiste - Secrets & Lies - Marianne's mother recently died, she already knew she was adopted but she is using this moment to track down her birth mother. She finds out that her birth mother is a working class white lady and this is confusing to her because she is black and was raised with black parents. This is a very natural performance, Mike Leigh works with his actors and lets them improvise to get very honest performances out of them. It's hard to tell how much of herself she put into this performance, especially because she never really did anything after this, so I can't really vote for her but I'm glad she got nominated.
2. Joan Allen - The Crucible - Arthur Miller's play about the Salem witch trials, which is really an allegory for the McCarthy hearings, comes to the big screen. Daniel Day-Lewis cheats on his wife and feels remorse so he breaks it off with his mistress. His mistress wants revenge so she accuses his wife of witchcraft and accusations fly around as a big "witch hunt" follows. Allen plays the wife who goes to trial, it's not the showiest role in the movie, she mostly plays stoic and reserved the whole time but she is the movie's secret weapon. Whenever they need to put a human face on the absurdity that is going on they cut to Allen and the looks on her face make you see the humanity in the madness. I just watched the trailer for the film and you can tell that the studio was gunning for way more Oscar nods than they got. Before each name is read they preface it with "Academy Award winning or nominated" and watching the movie you get the same feeling. They had their eyes focused on the Academy Awards and swung and missed.
1. Lauren Bacall - The Mirror Has Two Faces - Oh, Lauren Bacall. I can not describe how gorgeous she was. I mean, obviously she was a beautiful woman but it went deeper than that. Her voice, her talent, the way she carried herself, her attitude. Physically she was not someone that I am normally attracted to but much like with Katharine Hepburn I just fell in love with her. This was her only Oscar nomination and this film is not a good film but it has a dim flickering bright spot in Lauren Bacall. Jeff Bridges wants a platonic relationship so he starts dating Barbra Streisand under the pretense that they won't have sex. Of course, she gets all horny and wants to mount him but he thinks that will ruin what they have on an intellectual level. Then, near the end of the movie while he's out of town she gets a make over and he comes back and is like, "Hummina Hummina Hummina". Pretty bad flick but Bacall plays Babs's mother who is condescending and controlling. It's not a fantastic role, it's a pretty bad film, there is no way that this role would get a nomination if any other actress played this part. But just because she's Lauren Bacall and this category sucks, I feel compelled to vote for her.
Ugh, I don't know what to do. Hershey's out right off the bat. I don't like voting for people in their film debuts so I'm not going with Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Binoche was good but really didn't belong in her film. Allen was good but she's playing a role that has been done so many times. That leaves Lauren Bacall. I usually don't go for the veteran wins, especially when they are in a movie that's not good, but I have no other choice. I am also fully aware that if she had won the Oscar I would probably cry foul and vote for Joan Allen. Bacall deserved a lifetime achievement award for her career, and they gave her one anyway in 2009, so I'll cast my vote for her. She is the only reason, and I mean only reason, to watch The Mirror Has Two Faces.
Oscar Winner: Juliette Binoche
That was what everyone was saying when the nominations were announced in 1996. Jerry Maguire was the only Best Picture nominee from a "non-independent" studio, but if you look at the nominees they don't really seem that odd. You have a comedy, a Coen Brothers film, a biopic of an artist with mental illness, a British drama and a big bloated epic. Seems like an Oscar race to me. I think what they were saying is there wasn't that big studio film that came pre-packaged with "Oscar Movie" written all over it and there wasn't a studio movie that they could turn into an Oscar movie like Braveheart from the previous year. All the prestige pictures from the studios fizzled out quickly like The Crucible and Michael Collins and Sleepers, they're fine films but it's hard to drum up excitement over them. I don't like this Oscar year specifically because of The English Patient. One of the greatest films of the 90s or any other decade was right under your nose and you went with the big boring 3 hour movie about a guy with burns on his face.
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE
BEST PICTURE
5. The English Patient - This is the type of movie that gives the Oscars a bad name. When you think of an "Oscar movie" you probably think of something like this. It's long, it's epic, it's beautiful to look at, it's boring as all hell. The only real unforgivable movie sin for me is unnecessary length. My time is important, I got things to do, tell me your story but tell it concisely. There's no reason that this movie needs to be almost 3 hours long. Your story is about Ralph Fiennes falling in love in the desert, getting burned and trying to kill himself. Why does the nurse who is treating him need an hour of screen time, including a love interest? A great 90 minute movie is hiding in this bloated epic.
4. Shine - This is a biopic of David Helfgott. He was a child piano prodigy pushed into success by his domineering father and suffered a mental breakdown. He was institutionalized and later in life found love and was able to overcome his disabilities, somewhat, and gain success. I usually don't care for biopics and this is not really different. It's a fine film, I liked watching it but didn't stay with me and is not a movie I would champion for awards.
3. Secrets And Lies - To call this my favorite Mike Leigh film is not the highest of praise, but it's true. What a weird contrast of movies. You have The English Patient which is so bloated in its scope and then you have this movie which is just people talking and looks like it was filmed with all natural lighting. It's basically a British soap opera where a black woman tracks down her birth mother and it turns out to be a white lady who has a mess of problems of her own. It's a very good movie, the story is engaging, the acting is really great and the script is real and funny in an awkward off-beat way. I enjoyed the film but this has absolutely no re-watch value. It's not like if I had the choice between Fargo, Jerry Maguire or Secrets & Lies for a lazy Sunday afternoon I would ever pop this in the VCR.
2. Jerry Maguire - I don't know why it seems lame or un-hip for me to put the Tom Cruise romantic comedy 2nd on my list, but it does. I don't really care though, I loved this movie. It's not anything that probably needed to be nominated for Best Picture and in 50 years it may not be remembered but in 1996 we were all screaming "Show me the money!" and telling our loved ones that they had us at hello. If there is anything wrong with this movie it's that it became it's own cliche. People heard the catchphrases before they even saw the movie but that's a testament to how it connected with people. The lines became catchphrases because they were so good. Anyway, Tom Cruise plays a sports agent who has a mental crisis, he wants to treat his clients like people and he gets fired because of it. He goes out on his own, scores a high profile wide receiver and finds love. It's just a incredibly nice movie.
1. Fargo - I don't know if this is the best Coen Brothers film or just the most accessible. If you're going to start with one of their films I think this is a good one to watch. Then you can get into the more head scratching stuff like Barton Fink. It doesn't really matter because not only is Fargo my favorite Coen Brothers film it is one of my favorite films of the 90s. William H. Macy has a plan to get some money from his father-in-law. He orchestrates the kidnapping of his wife and when the ransom is paid he will keep the money. Things, of course, go wrong and Frances McDormand is a pregnant cop hot on his trail. It's a perfect film and, unlike The English Patient, this movie has absolutely no filler. It's a tight 98 minutes and every scene is important to the plot.
Fargo should have won. There's no doubt about it. This is like David going up against Goliath and Goliath steps on David's head. You can give The English Patient all the technical Oscars you want but if you can look me in the eye and say that you like The English Patient more than Fargo then I seriously question your taste in movies. In a year where the Oscars went "independent" they could have really supported independent film making and awarded a film that seemed to have absolutely no studio interference. If you need more proof, when the AFI came out with its 100 Best Movies list, Fargo placed at 84. The English Patient was not on the list. That list came out in 1998.
Oscar Winner: The English Patient
My Vote: Fargo
GABBY Winner: Fargo
BEST ACTOR
5. Woody Harrelson - The People Vs. Larry Flynt - I remember thinking at the time that it was cool that Woody Boyd from Cheers is now an Oscar nominated actor but after watching the movie I have to say that I just don't like this performance. Harrelson plays Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, who fought against the courts to allow him to peddle his porn. I didn't like the film itself, it takes everything I hate about biopics and combines that with telling the story of a guy that's a piece of shit to begin with. Harrelson does an impression of Flynt while never really creating a character. Now, if this nomination was for his performance in Kingpin, I would be all about giving him the win.
4. Ralph Fiennes - The English Patient - This is like nominating Lawrence Of Arabia and not nominating Peter O'Toole. Fiennes has to come along for the ride. I liked his performance even if the movie was bloated and full of itself. Fiennes plays the titular patient who is discovered with burns over 90% of his body and then we see his story play out in flashback. I disliked the movie but Fiennes is worth watching for his honest and raw performance.
3. Geoffrey Rush - Shine - Shine is a biopic about David Helfgott, a piano prodigy as a child who suffered a mental breakdown. Rush plays Helfgott, so you would assume that he is the lead role but he's really not. Noah Taylor plays Helfgott as a teenager and through the majority of the film. Rush is really only in about 30 minutes of the movie. To compare, in 2016 Dev Patel was nominated in the supporting category for Lion for playing the main character at a different age with probably more screen time. That aside, Rush is so good that he feels like a lead role, even if he's not. He is playing a man who can barely function in normal society because of his condition but he is able to pull all of his focus together when he's sitting in front of a piano. Rush actually studied piano to play the part which is incredibly respected. Still, don't think I can vote for him in this category just because of his screen time.
2. Tom Cruise - Jerry Maguire - This is just an incredibly delightful film. Cruise plays Jerry Maguire, a sports agent who does the unthinkable, he starts caring about his clients. He gets fired when he has a mental breakdown of sorts and e-mails out a personal manifesto. He starts his own agency with the one client who decides to stick with him and he goes on a journey where he finds love, respect and a purpose in life. Cruise is just being Cruise here, but he's so good at it. I never buy him when he's in movies like Born On The Fourth Of July where he's capital A acting and trying to get into a character. Cruise isn't an actor, he's a movie star. The same way Cary Grant was always great, and he never had to be anything other than Cary Grant. Cruise just has a natural screen presence that makes us identify with him whether he's fighting mummies, flying dangerous stunt missions or just talking to a child about the weight of the human head.
1. Billy Bob Thornton - Sling Blade - What makes a good performance? That's a question that doesn't have an easy answer. Different movies and characters resonate with different audiences differently. There is one way to tell if a performance works though and that is when it becomes a parody of itself. Thornton completely transforms himself to become Karl Childers, a mentally challenged man just released from an institution for murder. He killed a man who was being bad, not for revenge or self defense but because the man he killed was bad and he thought this was the appropriate way of dealing with the situation. Now he's free and moving back to his hometown. He is an isolated man that people don't know how to handle. He forms a friendship with a young boy and certain events happen that make him question whether he should kill again. He's the little voice inside all of our heads that works on impulse, only Karl doesn't have any other voices telling him not to act on those impulses. It's an incredible performance that became an impression based on the voice and the movements, like Don Vito Corleone or Raymond Babbitt or Forrest Gump. Thornton created it though and definitely gets my vote here.
You don't have to play a character with a physical or mental handicap to win an Oscar but it sure helps. Tom Cruise gives a great Tom Cruise performance but his character isn't mentally challenged, crippled or burnt so it's hard to vote for him. I understand why Rush was the favorite to win but he's kind of a supporting actor in the film. The movie is completely about his character but he only plays the character for roughly 1/3 of the film. Thornton may have cancelled himself out by writing, directing and starring in his film. He won the screenplay award so he didn't really need 2 Oscars for the same movie but he is incredible in the film and commands the screen for the entire running time.
Oscar Winner: Geoffrey Rush
My Vote: Billy Bob Thornton
GABBY Winner: Woody Harrelson for Kingpin
5. Kristin Scott Thomas - The English Patient - This nomination feels like The English Patient bus was heading to the Oscars and Kristin Scott Thomas hopped on the back and snuck in. She's perfectly fine in the movie but I would never think to nominate her, and in this category especially. Juliette Binoche would fit better in the lead actress category. When I think of a lead female performance I think of someone who anchors her film, Thomas is more of a supporting character.
4. Diane Keaton - Marvin's Room - This movie has "Oscar-bait" written all over it. Diane Keaton has leukemia and is need of a bone marrow transplant. She hasn't talked to her sister in years and her sister's son just got out of a mental hospital because he tried to burn the house down. The grandfather is senile and dying. The family connects because of tragedy and overcomes their obstacles. Blah, blah, blah. I love Diane Keaton but question why she got the nomination. Meryl Streep plays her sister and, not that she needed another nod, arguably gives the better performance. Keaton is more of the straight character in a house full of loonies. She does have the terminal illness though so I guess it makes sense that they included her.
3. Emily Watson - Breaking The Waves - If you really like Lars Von Triers films I can't help but think you might be a tad pretentious. I can understand enjoying sitting through this film but I can't imagine sitting through it twice or wanting to seek out another movie from the same director. Watson plays a woman who gets married young and she loves her husband, is very religious, talks to God and is all around a bit eccentric. Her husband gets into an accident and is left paralyzed. He is upset that he can't make love to his wife so he asks her to sleep with another man and then come back and tell him about it. She's conflicted at first but then rationalizes that these are her husband's wishes so God would want her to do it. I just don't like the look of the film, it's not pleasing to my eyes and there are pacing problems. I can respect the performance by Watson though even if she's trapped in a film I don't particularly care for. She is really amazing here and this is an intense and raw performance where she gets put through the ringer, like when she give an old man a handjob on the bus and then pukes.
2. Brenda Blethyn - Secrets & Lies - Blethyn is a working class English woman who spends most of her days smoking, drinking and crying until she is tracked down by the woman she gave up for adoption years ago. The girl is also black which throws her for a loop. Blethyn is so tragically funny in this movie. The humor comes from how bad her life is and you feel bad for laughing but she just nails the performance.
1. Frances McDormand - Fargo - Fargo is a perfect film and McDormand is at the center of it as Marge Gunderson, a pregnant Minnesota police chief investigating a roadside homicide that leads her to uncovering a fraudulent kidnapping plot. She's like a pregnant Sherlock Holmes with a goofy accent. It's so much fun to watch her figure out the mystery.
McDormand can be considered a supporting character but she is so good in the film and the movie is my favorite of the films nominated. Based on performance alone the vote is between McDormand, Watson and Blethyn and so the tie breaker comes down to my favorite actress and my favorite film. McDormand deserves an Oscar more than the other two based on career to this point and she's in my favorite film so this is a no contest decision for me. Do I vote for Fargo or a movie I didn't like as much?
Oscar Winner: Frances McDormand
My Vote: Frances McDormand
GABBY Winner: Frances McDormand
5. James Woods - Ghosts Of Mississippi - I love James Woods. This movie is pretty bad. If he was actually as old as the character he plays I may consider voting for this but instead he is under pounds and pounds of ridiculous make-up to make him look 40 years older than he really is. He plays Byron De La Beckwith, the man who murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evars in 1963, got away with it, bragged about it for 30 years, and is now facing trial again for the murder because of new evidence. He's really only in two scenes. We see him once as a younger man committing the murder, once on the stand and once in the bathroom gloating to Alec Baldwin. He's fine in the role and I want to vote for him because he's James Woods but this field is too crowded, the movie isn't good and he's not in it that much.
4. Armin Mueller-Stahl - Shine - The movie is about David Helfgott, a piano prodigy who suffered a mental breakdown. All of his mental issues pretty much stem from his overbearing and domineering father played by Mueller-Stahl. It's a really great character because he's essentially the villain of the film but he is treated as just a flawed man. He wants the best for his son so he wants the boy to learn the hardest piano pieces and when his piano teacher says that he should start with something simpler, Mueller-Stahl doesn't even think of that as an option. His boy is going to be the best pianist so he should learn the best pieces. He pushes his son too hard and his son suffers because of it. It's a really good performance and never gets to that moment that you expect in movies where he softens and tells his son he is sorry. He'd be a decent winner, I'm glad he got a nomination, but this field is just too crowded.
3. Edward Norton - Primal Fear - This is not a good film but Edward Norton is fantastic in it. I like when the Oscars reward a good performance in a not so good film. Richard Gere stars as a high profile lawyer who is more concerned about how he looks than whether his clients are innocent or guilty. Norton plays a meek, stuttering altar boy who is accused of murdering an archbishop. Gere takes his case and finds out that Norton has a split personality. One is psychotic and proud of committing the murder, the other has no memory of anything that happened. Norton gets to play 2 roles here which, spoiler alert, turn out to really be only one role. This was his breakout year. He had this film and The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Everyone Says I Love You so it's a nice "Welcome to the club" kind of nomination.
2. Cuba Gooding, Jr. - Jerry Maguire - Tom Cruise plays a sports agent who only has one client left. That client is wide receiver Rod Tidwell, played by Gooding. Cuba is insanely energetic in this performance. He's incredible and is the bright spot of every scene he's in. If his career didn't fizzle out immediately after his Oscar win and if William H. Macy wasn't in this category he would definitely get my vote.
1. William H. Macy - Fargo - This is my favorite nominated performance of the year. Macy plays Jerry Lundergaard, a Minnesotan who owns a car dealership who orchestrates his wife's kidnapping. He hires the kidnappers to collect the ransom from his father-in-law but, of course, things go really really wrong. Macy is brilliant here, most of his scenes involve him lying so we are seeing all sides to his character at once. We see him crafting his lies as he's telling them then trying to figure out how to make the lie stick. It's a perfect performance in a perfect film.
So, it's a bit of category fraud to have Macy here. He is the lead in the film and if I'm going to complain about Geoffrey Rush winning lead for a supporting performance, I should be equally upset about this. For some reason Macy being here just feels kinda right even if he does have more screen time than Frances McDormand. Macy just feels like an actor who should be in this category. Arguably he's the lead in Shameless but just fits in with the ensemble. He's the living definition of a supporting actor. I would be voting for Macy even if he ended up in the supporting actress category, I love his performance that much. Cuba was a fine choice, even if he is a distant distant 2nd choice for me, and gave one of the best acceptance speeches in Oscar history. It will all work out if Macy ends up winning one eventually. If he never wins an Oscar we can all look back at this year as a terrible decision.
Oscar Winner: Cuba Gooding, Jr.
My Vote: William H. Macy
GABBY Winner: William H. Macy
5. Barbara Hershey - The Portrait Of A Lady - Man. I like doing these blogs but sometimes they just feel like work. I sat through this incredibly boring film specifically for Barbara Hershey and found absolutely nothing of merit within the whole damn thing. It's a costume drama starring Nicole Kidman, she has many suitors and Hershey and John Malkovich scheme against her. This movie was so forgettable that I'm having trouble recalling the plot and I watched it yesterday. Good god. Why do movies like this continue to be made and why do they get Oscar nominations so I feel like I have to watch them?
4. Juliette Binoche - The English Patient - Binoche plays the nurse who is tending to Ralph Fiennes's burns. She's kind of the main character in the movie, she shouldn't be, but she is. There will be flashbacks to Fiennes and Thomas, you know, the characters we care about, and then Binoche will go off with Willem Dafoe and Naveen Andrews. Remember when I said this movie was way too long? Binoche's subplot is what should have been cut or given its own film. She's quite good in the movie, she's a fantastic actress, but she should have been the lead in her own movie rather than shoehorned into this one.
3. Marianne Jean-Baptiste - Secrets & Lies - Marianne's mother recently died, she already knew she was adopted but she is using this moment to track down her birth mother. She finds out that her birth mother is a working class white lady and this is confusing to her because she is black and was raised with black parents. This is a very natural performance, Mike Leigh works with his actors and lets them improvise to get very honest performances out of them. It's hard to tell how much of herself she put into this performance, especially because she never really did anything after this, so I can't really vote for her but I'm glad she got nominated.
2. Joan Allen - The Crucible - Arthur Miller's play about the Salem witch trials, which is really an allegory for the McCarthy hearings, comes to the big screen. Daniel Day-Lewis cheats on his wife and feels remorse so he breaks it off with his mistress. His mistress wants revenge so she accuses his wife of witchcraft and accusations fly around as a big "witch hunt" follows. Allen plays the wife who goes to trial, it's not the showiest role in the movie, she mostly plays stoic and reserved the whole time but she is the movie's secret weapon. Whenever they need to put a human face on the absurdity that is going on they cut to Allen and the looks on her face make you see the humanity in the madness. I just watched the trailer for the film and you can tell that the studio was gunning for way more Oscar nods than they got. Before each name is read they preface it with "Academy Award winning or nominated" and watching the movie you get the same feeling. They had their eyes focused on the Academy Awards and swung and missed.
1. Lauren Bacall - The Mirror Has Two Faces - Oh, Lauren Bacall. I can not describe how gorgeous she was. I mean, obviously she was a beautiful woman but it went deeper than that. Her voice, her talent, the way she carried herself, her attitude. Physically she was not someone that I am normally attracted to but much like with Katharine Hepburn I just fell in love with her. This was her only Oscar nomination and this film is not a good film but it has a dim flickering bright spot in Lauren Bacall. Jeff Bridges wants a platonic relationship so he starts dating Barbra Streisand under the pretense that they won't have sex. Of course, she gets all horny and wants to mount him but he thinks that will ruin what they have on an intellectual level. Then, near the end of the movie while he's out of town she gets a make over and he comes back and is like, "Hummina Hummina Hummina". Pretty bad flick but Bacall plays Babs's mother who is condescending and controlling. It's not a fantastic role, it's a pretty bad film, there is no way that this role would get a nomination if any other actress played this part. But just because she's Lauren Bacall and this category sucks, I feel compelled to vote for her.
Ugh, I don't know what to do. Hershey's out right off the bat. I don't like voting for people in their film debuts so I'm not going with Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Binoche was good but really didn't belong in her film. Allen was good but she's playing a role that has been done so many times. That leaves Lauren Bacall. I usually don't go for the veteran wins, especially when they are in a movie that's not good, but I have no other choice. I am also fully aware that if she had won the Oscar I would probably cry foul and vote for Joan Allen. Bacall deserved a lifetime achievement award for her career, and they gave her one anyway in 2009, so I'll cast my vote for her. She is the only reason, and I mean only reason, to watch The Mirror Has Two Faces.
Oscar Winner: Juliette Binoche
My Vote: Lauren Bacall
GABBY Winner: Lily Tomlin for Flirting With Disaster
Best Director
Anthony Minghella wins for The English Patient which I'm okay with because there's nothing I can do about it. The Coen Brothers got their Oscar eventually and the other nominees in this category were Milos Forman for a movie I didn't like, Scott Hicks for Shine and Mike Leigh for pointing a camera at his actors until they say something interesting. Minghella earns points for scope but loses points for everything else.
Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay
The Coen Brothers win Original for Fargo and Billy Bob Thornton wins Adapted for Sling Blade. These are the only categories that the Oscars got exactly right this year. A real quick word on the nominees though, Secrets And Lies gets a nomination for a largely improvised script and Hamlet and The Crucible get nominated for barely changing a word from their source material.
Best Original Dramatic Score/Music Or Comedy Score/Song
This was during the few years where they split the scores by genres. This led to movies like Patch Adams and The First Wives Club to earn Oscar nominations. I think they did this to prevent animated Disney movies from winning over worthy dramatic scores and they did so just in time for lesser Disney films like The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. The English Patient keeps the sweep in check by winning in the dramatic category. They had the perfect chance to throw Fargo an easy win by nominating Carter Burwell's iconic score for Fargo in the comedy category but didn't so they gave the win to Emma. It's possible that Academy voters didn't realize that the Coen Brothers had made a comedy. The Best Song category really sucked this year. You have 3 lame ballads from The Mirror Has Two Faces, One Fine Day and Up Close And Personal, the title song from That Thing You Do and the winner You Must Love Me from Evita. Why does a movie based on a Tony winning musical need a brand new song at its center?
Best Sound/Sound Effects Editing
The English Patient wins Best Sound which is fair and the big budget spectacles of Independence Day, The Rock and Twister probably cancelled each other out. It was not nominated in the Sound Effects Editing category which means The Ghost And The Darkness is now an Oscar winning film. What a weird category, The Ghost And The Darkness, Daylight and Eraser, 3 movies I would never think would be Academy Award winning films.
Best Art Direction/Cinematography/Costume Design/Film Editing
I hate sweeps. Not only are they boring, they are usually unearned. The English Patient wins all 4 of these categories and it has less to do with the fact that the movie was better edited than Fargo or the costumes were better than Hamlet and more to do with the fact that the voters were lazy and just picked the movie they thought they should.
Best Makeup
The not-so-convincing old age make-up in Ghosts Of Mississippi got a nomination but lost out to Rick Baker and the insane amount of prosthesis and fat suits in The Nutty Professor, deservedly so.
Best Visual Effects
I recently re-watched Independence Day and while I liked all the practical special effects, some of the digital ones didn't hold up as well. Still this movie was a game changer in 1996 and everybody wanted to know how they blew up the White House.
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2011
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