1990 Oscar Watch

I just finished watching all the nominees from 1980 and even though I don't hold Raging Bull in as high regard as other people it was definitely the best nominated film of that year.  Ordinary People is a very good film and Robert Redford, Hollywood icon, never won an Oscar so the decision is not a ghastly one.  Hindsight is always 20/20, people make mistakes, you can learn from your mistakes and try to avoid repeating them.  The Academy decided to say phooey to hindsight and ignored Scorsese again.  They guy makes what many call the best film of the 1980s and gets passed over for an actor making his directorial debut and then ten years later he makes the best film of the 1990s and gets passed over for an actor making his directorial debut.  This year also didn't have a lot of great films, it's definitely a much weaker year than 1980 so there is no reason Marty shouldn't have won here.

You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

BEST PICTURE

 

5. Dances With Wolves - Ugh.  I watched this movie years ago and was bored silly.  I just chalked it up to a bad decision, like The English Patient beating Fargo, this was just a movie that people loved at the time and they got swept up in the momentum and voted it Best Picture.  Watching it this time, I almost put it on my worst of the year list.  It's 3 hours of nothing happening.  Kevin Costner is a white man who lives among an Indian tribe, he spends some time there, and that's pretty much the movie.  There's not a lot of plot to speak of.  He meets a white lady, who has lived with the Indians since she was a young girl, marries her, has a weirdly shot sex scene, but there's little that actually happens.  It's also filled with painfully dull voice over narration that makes the film drag to a snail's pace.

4. The Godfather, Part III - Supporters of this film will say that you can't compare it to the first two.  This is nigh impossible as you can't follow the narrative without having seen the first two.  Whether you compare it to the far superior predecessors or not, this movie is fairly dull and lifeless.  Coppola himself said that he only made it because of financial difficulties he was having.  If that was the case, and the story was already complete, why does this have to be 3 hours long?  A tight 2 hour film is always better than a bloated 3 hour one.  This is actually shorter than the other two but there is so much filler.  The whole movie seems like filler and it is not in any way visually interesting.  Throw in Sofia Coppola and a laughable end scene which makes the death of Michael Corleone look like a joke and you have a big load of "what was the point?".

3. Ghost - It's a weak year so you might as well throw a nomination to the movie that made the most money.  There's no reason Ghost should be in the Best Picture lineup, it's a fairly silly movie with a lot of plot holes, but it is enjoyable and a crowd pleaser.  Patrick Swayze dies and instead of going into the light he remains a ghost and tries to solve his murder and watch after his love.  He gets assistance from a medium played by Whoopi Goldberg and it's one of those movies that should be a lot of fun but gets real dark, real fast.  A lot of movies from this time had fun plots but involved the mob or criminals.  Look at Three Men And A Baby, you have a movie about three guys raising a child but they also have to thwart heroin dealers.  I guess they did this to raise stakes but the guy's already dead and a ghost, those seem like stakes to me.

2. Awakenings - This movie is a little sappy and manipulative, it's designed to tug on your heartstrings, but I bought it hook, line and sinker.  Robin Williams plays an introverted doctor who lacks bedside manner and people skills but makes up for it with ingenuity.  He takes a job in a hospital that treats patients with severe cases of catatonia.  Treat may not be the correct word, they have given up hope on these people and just force feed them until they die.  Williams sees potential in them and learns about a new drug that may bring them out of their state.  He fights with the board and they let him try it out on one patient, Robert De Niro, and it works.  They then administer it to all the patients and they start to wake up after years of being in a coma.  Problem is though that they have all lost years of their lives.  They wake up and all their friends are dead, their parents, and they have no idea what year it is.  De Niro was a child when he went away so he is now a 40 year old man.  It's a tearjerker and it works.

1. Goodfellas - You never seen Goodfellas?  Fuhgetaboutit.

Ok, so The Godfather Part III should probably come off first.  It's just not as good as its Oscar winning predecessors.  Ghost is an enjoyable film but not quite Oscar caliber.  The vote comes down between...I'm just fucking around, Goodfellas gets the vote.  There's no question, on all levels it is far superior to the competition.  Storytelling, editing, cinematography, acting and just pure enjoyment.  I would watch Goodfellas 10 times before I watched any of the other films.  Dances With Wolves winning here is one of the all time worst decisions, not only did a great film get snubbed causing 16 years of waiting to give Scorsese a makeup win but Dances With Wolves is just a really horrible movie.

Oscar Winner: Dance With Wolves
My Vote: Goodfellas
GABBY Winner: Goodfellas

BEST ACTOR

 

5. Kevin Costner - Dances With Wolves - Costner plays a white man who lives with Indians.  This performance is, how do you say?, not good.  Not only does he seem pretty bored throughout the whole movie, which I guess fits with his character, but he also provides lifeless and dull narration.  You want good voice over narration?  Let Ray Liotta show you how it's done in Goodfellas.  Damn Goodfellas is so good it made voice over work.

4. Gerard Depardieu - Cyrano de Bergerac - You know know my rule, foreign performances always land in the fifth slot, unless Kevin Costner is nominated.  Depardieu is fine as Cyrano but there is no way two people should win Oscars for playing the same character unless it's a Godfather Part II scenario.  This would be like giving an Oscar to whoever played Hamlet every year.

3. Robert DeNiro - Awakenings - De Niro plays a man who developed a disease as a child that left him in a catatonic state.  40 years later he wakes up with the help of some experimental drugs.  Now he's an old man who has lost most of his life but still has this child like sense of wonder, much like Robin Williams in Jack.  I bring up Williams because he should have been nominated as well, he is the emotional center of the film but has the less flashy part.  De Niro is really good in the film, he's believable in the first half of the movie when he is unresponsive and really makes you feel for him when he wants to be treated like a human being and then heartbreaking when the awakening doesn't turn out to be permanent.  He's already got 2 Oscars for better performances so I can't place him any higher than 3rd here.

2. Richard Harris - The Field - Harris plays Bull McCabe, an Irish farmer who has looked after a field for years and thinks of it as his own.  When the woman who owns the field wants to sell it she doesn't offer it to McCabe she instead puts it up for public auction.  McCabe intimidates the whole town from bidding on it so he can get it for cheap.  When an American strolls into town and bids on the field some complications arise.  Harris is good in the role but this feels a bit like a veteran nomination.  He's great at playing old and grouchy, because he's an old and grouchy guy.  He's also much better than the film.  It seems like every other Jim Sheridan film is great, this is one of the others.

1. Jeremy Irons - Reversal Of Fortune - Irons plays Claus Von Bulow, wealthy socialite who was accused of murdering his wife so he could collect the money.  Irons is terrific at playing a completely unsympathetic character.  He claims his innocence but makes jokes about being accused of murder.  Everybody thinks he did it, even his lawyer, and he knows he's not winning anyone's sympathy.  Even as the movie ends you're left thinking that this dude probably killed his wife, even if he does get proven innocent.  Irons is so good that you don't realize that he's kind of a supporting character.  The movie is more about his attorney Alan Dershowitz trying to figure out a way to get him off.

This one's a bit of a toss up.  Costner and Depardieu are out and De Niro also doesn't contend because he doesn't need a 3rd Oscar just yet.  So the vote comes down between Irons and Harris.  Both are "Oscar caliber" actors and a win for either would be a good decision.  When it's a tie like this I gotta vote for the better film and that's Reversal Of Fortune.  Harris should have won an Oscar at some point in his career but so should Irons, so you flip the coin and pick the movie you liked the best.

Oscar Winner: Jeremy Irons

My Vote: Jeremy Irons
GABBY Winner: Robert De Niro

De Niro only had 1 win from me at this time which is why I gave him the win over Irons and the un-nominated Ray Liotta

BEST ACTRESS

 

5. Joanne Woodward - Mr. And Mrs. Bridge - Oh, Merchant Ivory, can you make a boring movie and not get Oscar nominations?  This is one of those period pieces where nothing much happens, people talk a lot and everybody says it's great.  It's about a family in the 30s and times are a changin' and the father doesn't cotton to it.  Woodward is fine in the role and it's kind of fun seeing her together with Paul Newman but the movie is so dull I could never vote for this.  Also, she's won before for a much better performance.

4. Meryl Streep - Postcards From The Edge - Meryl plays an actress with a drug problem in the adaptation of Carrie Fisher's semi-autobiographical novel.  Fisher said that the novel and the film wasn't a straight biography but it's about an actress with a drug problem and a famous mother so it's hard not to separate the art from the artist.  It was bittersweet watching this film just a year after Fisher and Debbie Reynolds died days apart.  Streep is good here, not 3rd Oscar good but good.  If she hadn't have won twice she would definitely be in the top 4.  The opening scene alone is worth a nomination where we see Streep acting in a movie and flubbing her lines and then going to her trailer to do some cocaine.

3. Julia Roberts - Pretty Woman - This is a nomination more for star power than acting.  Roberts plays a hooker with a heart of gold.  The movie is fairly unbelievable and makes prostitution look like a glamorous industry.  It's an enjoyable romantic fantasy though and Roberts is charming.  This is the film that made her a star so in a weak year I respect the nomination but there's no way she should win for this, especially up against the next two actresses.

2. Anjelica Huston - The Grifters - Huston already had an Oscar at this point but this performance is worthy of a 2nd, especially considering her first win was in the supporting category.  I love The Grifters, it's such a dark film noir but it's filmed like an 80s movie so it's also got a really fun pace.  Much like Jeremy Irons, Huston excels at making the audience root for an unsympathetic character.  She shouldn't have a happy ending but at the same time we don't want to see her get beaten with a sack of oranges or burned by a cigar.  You're never quite sure if you can trust her character, she's playing a con artist, but you still want her to succeed.

1. Kathy Bates - Misery - This movie is pretty rad.  It's a Stephen King adaptation, which is usually a bad thing, but it's Rob Reiner doing it and he makes it visually interesting while focusing on the story.  James Caan is a writer who crashes his car and is rescued from the wreckage by his biggest fan.  She nurses him back to health and holds him hostage when she finds out that he is planning on killing off her favorite character.  Bates plays full on wacko, but instead of just focusing on the villainous side of her character plays the heart as well.  She's a lonely and isolated person who escapes her life through her favorite books and when the possibility of that disappearing comes to her she snaps.  It's a great villain performance because she's the hero of her own story.

If Huston hadn't have won already I would give the win to her.  Even her having a previous win doesn't disqualify her as she would win this category easily if it weren't for Bates.  I gotta vote for Bates for the same reason I would have voted for Broderick Crawford in All The King's Men.  Bates is a character actress who when she got her shot at a lead role gave it all she got and created an iconic character.

Oscar Winner: Kathy Bates
My Vote: Kathy Bates
GABBY Winner: Anjelica Huston
Huston hadn't won from me at this point which is why I gave her the win over Bates

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

 

5. Graham Greene - Dances With Wolves - It's probably racist for me to compare this with the nomination for Chief Dan George in Little Big Man but I kept waiting for the reason why Greene got nominated.  Much like when I watched Little Big Man, Chief Dan George played the wise old chief but then he had a terrific final scene that cemented his character as something memorable.  Greene on the other hand just basically exists in the film.  That's not his fault, the movie is bad and doesn't do anything with any of the characters but I could not find a reason to single out Greene from the rest of the cast.

4. Andy Garcia - The Godfather, Part III - Not only is Andy Garcia the best part of The Godfather Part III, he's one of the only reasons to watch the film.  Garcia plays Sonny Corleone's illegitimate son and those are pretty big shoes to fill.  Garcia is crazy, insane and explosive without going over the top.  It's a really fun performance in a not so fun movie.

3. Al Pacino - Dick Tracy - Pacino plays Big Boy Caprice under a bunch of makeup and he is hammy and over the top and it works.  This is Pacino letting loose and cranking every scene up to 11.  It's a fun performance but not something you want to give an Oscar to.  He didn't win for The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon or Serpico, but he wins for Dick Tracy?  He ranks as high as he does because he's fun and hasn't won yet.  My favorite performance in the film actually was Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles.

2. Bruce Davison - Longtime Companion - This is a movie about a bunch of gay men living during the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic.  For most of the movie Davison is just part of the ensemble and I kept waiting for the reason why he was nominated.  Then there is one unbroken shot of Davison watching his lover die and I realized why he got singled out.  He doesn't overplay this moment at all, he watches his lover and best friend die and tries to give him comfort in his final moments.  That scene got him the nomination, there's not much else to the performance other than that but he definitely deserves to be here.

1. Joe Pesci - Goodfellas - This is one of the best Supporting Actor Oscar wins of all time.

At least they didn't screw this category up and give it to Graham Greene.  Pesci deserved the Oscar 10 years ago but I'm glad he didn't win because he deserved it here more.  He also has no competition.  Davison, Pacino and Garcia would be fine winners but they would just be the actors who wrongfully defeated Joe Pesci.

Oscar Winner: Joe Pesci
My Vote: Joe Pesci
GABBY Winner: Joe Pesci

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

5. Diane Ladd - Wild At Heart - This performance is a campy treat.  If you like your performances hammy and over the top then this is one to check out.  I did not like this movie at all.  I'm not a huge David Lynch fan, I either really like his movies or find them unwatchable, there's very few that fall in the in-between.  Ladd, Laura Dern's real life mother, plays Laura Dern's mother and she hates Dern's boyfriend, Nicolas Cage.  She hates him so much that she hires killers to go after him.  She's full on wacko cuckoo crazy pants and there is no room for subtlety in her performance.

4. Mary McDonnell - Dances With Wolves - If anyone was going to get nominated from this horrible movie it should have been McDonnell.  She did a good job with her role of a white lady who has lived with the Indians since she was young.  I liked the scenes where she was translating between Costner and the chief but I never truly bought her performance.  It's a weird complaint but she was too beautiful for the part.  You would think a woman living in the fields should be a little dirty and plain but she looked like a Hollywood actress out on the plantation.


3. Whoopi Goldberg - Ghost - Whoopi plays a psychic medium who is full of crap.  She knowingly cons people into thinking she can communicate with the dead and takes their money.  Then one day she gets visited by dead Patrick Swayze and it turns out she really does have a gift.  She's the comic relief in the film and is pretty funny in the role but it's not a performance that jumps out as an Oscar winning one.  Whoopi deserved a win in 1985 though so it's not a horrible outcome.

2. Annette Bening - The Grifters - At first you think Bening is this ditsy blonde but then you find out that she may be the smartest grifter of the bunch.  It's a very fun performance, especially her scenes when we flashback to her long con.

1. Lorraine Bracco - Goodfellas - Bracco plays Ray Liotta's wife.  This is a terrific performance that runs the gamut of emotions.  At first she's the typical stock girlfriend role, then she transitions into excess mob wife, then scared for her life.  She's really the emotional center of the film and the audience's way in.  Everyone else is either having fun or paying for doing gangster stuff but she is the one directly affected by it.

Whoopi's win only makes sense if it's a makeup for 1985.  If that's the case I kind of condone it, but not quite.  Based on performance the vote goes to Bracco with Bening being a distant 2nd choice.

Oscar Winner: Whoopi Goldberg

My Vote: Lorraine Bracco
GABBY Winner: Lorraine Bracco

Best Director

Kevin Costner wins for Dances With Wolves which is a worse decision than Best Picture.  I can almost see voting for Dances With Wolves as Best Picture, it's long and boring with good cinematography, most of the Best Picture winners of the past decade match all of these criteria.  I don't, however, understand how you could vote for Costner over Scorsese,based solely on the fact that they passed him over 10 years ago.  Scorsese's work is tight and focused, Costner seems more interested in sets and framing himself than telling a story.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay

Ghost wins Original which seems like a terrible decision but it was up against Alice, Avalon, Green Card and Metropolitan.  None of them would really hold up as winners and seeing that Ghost was the only Best Picture nominee nominated, it makes sense.  Dances With Wolves wins Adapted which, somehow, makes even less sense than the Director and Picture wins.  There is barely a story in this bloated piece of shit.  Add that to the fact that it was up against Goodfellas, The Grifters, Awakenings and Reversal Of Fortune.  What a terrible decision.

Best Film Editing

We keep the nonsense train rolling along as Dance With Wolves beats Goodfellas and The Hunt For Red October.  If the award was for least editing then Costner had this sewn up.  I'm assuming that every frame of film that was shot just got vomited on to the screen.

Best Original Score

Dances With Wolves wins, which, finally, is a decent decision.  The score to the film is pretty good and this is a weak category.  Avalon, Ghost, Havana and Home Alone can't really compete.  For some reason Elmer Bernstein's jazzy score to The Grifters and Carter Burwell's epic score to Miller's Crossing were left off the nominees.

Best Original Song

Sooner Or Later from Dick Tracy wins.  It's not a great song and it's not really used that well in the film.  I'm only assuming that this was a win for Stephen Sondheim instead of the song itself.  The best nominated song has got to be Bon Jovi's Blaze Of Glory, but who wants to give an Oscar to Young Guns II?

Best Sound/Sound Effects Editing

Dances With Wolves wins for Sound, which is fine, by which I mean a more warranted win than some of the others.  It didn't get a Sound Effects Editing nomination so that went to The Hunt For Red October.

Best Art Direction/Makeup

Dick Tracy rightfully wins both of these categories.  The sets and the makeup effects leap off the screen and set the mood for this comic strip adaptation.

Best Costume Design

This should have gone to Dick Tracy, the costumes seem to have colors that don't exist in nature but instead they gave it to Cyrano de Bergerac which has decent costumes but certainly nothing new.

Best Cinematography

Dances With Wolves wins one last award, this one was to be expected.  Westerns always look like they have great cinematography because of the scenery.  As I was watching the movie I kept thinking that it would be more interesting if the camera moved more though, see the Goodfellas tracking shot.

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