Oscar nominations came out last week. Barry put together a great breakdown of the field last Tuesday. This week I'm dedicating the Power Rankings to Oscar's best and worst of the last 20 years. I spent most of the day trying to come up with the five best Oscar moments and I barely made it. On the other hand, I probably could have listed forty terrible Oscar moments.
Top 5
1.
1994 - Go back and look at the 67th Academy Awards;
Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption, Four Weddings and a Funeral (possibly the last decent romantic comedy ever made). That's a Murder's Row of Best Picture nominees and that list doesn't include
Ed Wood,
The Madness of King George, Bullets Over Broadway and
Heavenly Creatures. Don't believe me? Turn your TV to TBS. There's a 93% chance one of those movies is playing right now.
1994 was a renaissance year for film making at least it was for my generation. We had buried the 80's musically and were now ready to discard the action movies of the previous decade and return to a grittier, more cerebral and independent form of film making. Young directors Like Kevin Smith and Wes Anderson were putting out soon to be favorites
Clerks and
Bottle Rocket. We were ready to take the baton and if the previous generation wasn't ready to pass to us, we were going to take it.
2.
Daniel Day-Lewis - He doesn't make many movies but when he does, he goes all in. Time and again Day-Lewis has proven to be one of the finest actors of this generation. I don't think I've ever seen a bigger slam dunk for Best Actor than Day-Lewis was for his portrayal of Daniel Plainview in the movie
There Will Be Blood. Unless you count when he was nominated but inexplicably didn't win for Bill "The Butcher" Cutting for which he may have given a better performance than he did as Plainview. He has two Best Actor Oscars already and I'm going to go ahead and call my shot that he wins a third as Abraham Lincoln in 2012.
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3.
Platoon -
Platoon was the first "R" rated movie I was able to see in the theater. My parents took me to see the movie on my 15th birthday. My dad was a Vietnam Vet but I didn't really understand what that meant until I saw this movie. This was the first time I saw how profoundly a movie could affect someone. There were several vets in the theater that day and the great majority of them sat there in silence as the closing credits rolled; many with tear running down their cheeks. I remember the theater was completely silent until finally one vet said "that was a great movie until that Jane Fonda shit at the end." I'll never forget that day or what it taught me about the power of film.
4.
In Memoriam - I'm a sucker for this presentation every year. It's by far my favorite part of the show every year. Even last year when I couldn't watch it live and then lost interest when I hear that no talent Sandra Bullock had won Best Actress, I still fast forwarded to this segment to have my one Oscar moment. I don't remember who died this year but damn, I can't wait to find out.
5.
Streisand Snub? - Does anyone else remember in 1992 when Hollywood was up in arms over Barbra Streisand not being nominated in the Best Director category for
Prince of Tides? Well the truth is it wasn't a snub. The movie just wasn't that good. Yeah it had some of the things the academy loves like a tear jerking story, mental illness and child abuse but the movie kind of sucked. Thank God the academy didn't fall prey to their sentimental tendencies. Instead they kept reserved those tendencies for the supporting acting categories.
Bottom 5
1.
1994 - As I've discussed, 1994 was a great year for movies. However, it was also a year the academy got nearly everything wrong. Apparently,
The Shawshank Redemption directed itself because Frank Durabont didn't sniff a Best Director nomination. Johnny Depp (
Ed Wood), Ralph Fiennes (
Quiz Show) and Tim Robbins (
The Shawshank Redemption) not being nominated almost seems criminal looking back. By the way, Tom Hanks' one note performance as Forrest Gump was at best the fifth best that year.
The most egregious of all academy oversights, possibly in its history, neither
Crumb nor
Hoop Dreams were nominated for Best Documentary. If you've never seen them, first of all, what's wrong with you but secondly they are two of the best documentaries ever made. Forget Best Documentary,
Hoop Dreams should have been nominated for Best Picture. The high school basketball documentary won more awards outside of the academy than any other film made that year and topped Gene Siskel's movies of the year list. If you have the time google Roger Ebert's story on how those movies were overlooked. It's appalling and ultimately led to the academy changing its selection process.
2.
Best Picture - There have been several terrible choices for Best Picture;
Crash, The English Patient, A Beautiful Mind and
Titantic all come to mind. However, the biggest travesty in the Best Picture category happened at the 71st Academy Awards when
Shakespeare in Love took home the award over
Saving Private Ryan.
Shakespeare was a good movie, a great movie even but
Saving Private Ryan was a transcendent historical epic that had all the elements of a Best Picture. I was pissed for weeks about this selection. For years, anytime someone would bring up either movie I would go off on a vitriol filled rant against the academy. Hell, I'm getting pissed right now thinking about it. Let's just move on.
3.
Best Actress - Best Actress is one of those categories where the academy consistently makes terrible choices. I've come to the conclusion that the voters are more swayed by media hype in this category than any other. I also don't think they're smart enough to discern between the way an actress looks and how she acts.
True story (maybe), Katherine Hepburn was such a strong, spirited woman, her doctors believe she would live to be about 110 years old. However in 2001 when she saw Julia Roberts beat out Ellen Burstyn in the Best Actress category, she told a confidant her life's work had lost all meaning. Two years later she was dead.
Flash forward nine years to the 82nd Academy Awards. I don't know if you remember but they had to abruptly cut to a commercial towards the end of Sandra Bullock's thank you speech. Why? Well rumor has it as Bullock was wrapping up her speech, Katherine Hepburn's zombie burst through the floor attacking Bullock and shouting "YOU WILL NOT DESECRATE MY LEGACY!" Moments later security gunned down the undead Kate and the show continued as if nothing happened. I believe if you really want to see the footage, it's on Faces of Death vol. 37.
Bullocks performance wasn't even worthy of a nomination much less a win. Of the other nominees, I would have placed her behind Streep's Julia Child and I thought that performance sucked. Any number of actresses could have pulled off that part with little difficulty. Ugh, this may be a bigger travesty than
Shakespeare in Love and
Hoop Dreams combined.
4.
Supporting Actor/Actress - If Best Actress has been driven by media hype, then the supporting category(s) have been ruled by sentiment and buffoonery. Whoopi (
Ghost) over Annette Bening (
Grifters), Jack Palance (
City Slickers), Marisa Tomei (
My Cousin Vinny) and Cuba Gooding Jr. (
Jerry Maguire) were all terrible winners. The worst though was Tommy Lee Jones (
The Fugitive) walking away with the award in a category loaded with some of the best performances of any year. Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goth in
Schindler's List would have been my choice but any of the other three nominees, Leonardo DiCaprio (
What's Eating Gilbert Grape), Pete Postlethwaite (
In the Name of the Father), John Malkovich (
In the Line of Fire) would have been a more deserving winner than Jones.
5.
Lord of the Rings - Don't be fooled by the title, I don't
LOTR doesn't belong in the bottom 5 but the academy waiting until the last movie was released to finally present them with the accolades they so richly deserved is a bottom 5er.
A Beautiful Mind and Ron Howard better than
Fellowship? Ridiculous. Peter Jackson who was nominated for Best Director for
Fellowship of the Ring and
Return of the King wasn't nominated for the middle movie
The Two Towers. The movies were shot all at the same time. Did he forget how to direct midway through then rediscover his mojo? Whatever. The most disconcerting part is that all the awards were heaped on
Return of the King which in my opinion is the least effective of all the films.
The Go-Getter - See it - Nice little indie film with an excellent soundtrack featuring M.Ward. Mercer is a 19 year old boy who loves adventurous books like Huckleberry Finn but laments the fact that he's never sought out on his own adventure. In a moment of spontaneity Mercer steals a car at a local restaurant to set out on an adventure. This is where the story begins or so we think. Along the way he forms a relationship with the owner of the car through hours of phone conversations. He reconnects with a girl from middle school while seeking out to find his long lost brother. The Go-Getter is one of those movies you like because it's the type of thing you'd like to do but never do. Just like Jenna Malone's character is the kind of girl you want to hook up with but never do. Overall it's a good movie with just the right amount of drama and comedy to keep you interested. 
Inside Job - Must see - I don't mean to ruin your pristine image of what the US is but our government and the people who run Wall Street are a bunch crooked motherfuckers. That is indisputable. Inside Job is the Oscar winning documentary that exposes what happened to cause the collapse of the financial markets in 2007 and the resulting bail outs of the investment banking system. The documentary is beautifully produced with Matt Damon narrating. Producer/Director Charles Ferguson is relatively fearless when interviewing the major players of the rampant banking scandals from a few years ago. Well he's fearless with the ones that would actually talk to him. The film does a nice job explaining the complex criminal actions these Wall Street fat cats committed. Among the many things you learn is that this isn't a left wing or right wing issue but a case of the Wall Street players being ostensibly beyond the law largely due to an incestuous relationship between Wall Street banks and the government agencies charged with regulating them. It's an infuriating look at the greed, entitlement and excesses of a world most of us will never experience but ultimately are forced to pay for with our tax dollars.
The Lottery - See it - This is a terrific companion piece if you watched and enjoyed Waiting for Superman. Where Waiting for Superman takes a more macro view of our educational crisis The Lottery concentrates solely on the school system in New York City and Harlem specifically. Many of the same players like Geoffrey Canada appear in both films and we the audience are ultimately left with the same inescapable anger at a broken system. I find it hard to believe anyone can watch either of these movies and not find themselves backing the Wisconsin Governor and his fight to break the teacher union. Especially when you see them do stuff like hire ACORN to come in and create social unrest in neighborhoods to prevent charter schools from opening because they don't have contracts with them. Few things will piss you off more than seeing kids suffer from the stubbornness and ignorance of adults. The Lottery isn't quite as good as Waiting for Superman but still very much worth watching.
