We’ve been doing some digging to find out what people were thinking before the surprise Oscars delivered Braveheart for Apollo 13 and Out of Africa for the Color Purple. On these occasions, two directors won the DGA, weren’t nominated for Oscar, and saw their Best Picture hopes dashed in the 11th hour. But everyone believes Argo is a done deal so perhaps it’s moot. But it’s fun to look back anyway.
First, Marshall Flores helped us dig up an old predictions article by Kenneth Turan, who was really their only Oscar guy, and one of the only Oscar guys around, wrote this:
If this year’s Academy Awards competition were a major motion picture, “Oscar’s Revenge” would be the obvious title.
After a series of contests that were child’s play to predict, the race for the 1995 statuettes has been the despair of veteran Oscar watchers. While in previous years it was clear that “Unforgiven,” “Schindler’s List” and “Forrest Gump” were going to dominate, no such consensus has emerged as yet.
That’s partly because the contest for best picture has proven fiendishly difficult to get a handle on, with the momentum for the various contenders ebbing and flowing like the passions of a teenager’s heart. What it’s finally come down to is whether the space shot has enough fuel left to hold off a fast-closing pig.
The space shot is “Apollo 13,” the second-most-nominated film this year with nine, a traditional studio picture that has been a top contender since the day it came out. It was in fact such a favorite for so long that momentum inevitably shifted away from it when “Sense and Sensibility” made its appearance.
But when “S&S” missed out on a best directing nomination and “Apollo 13” director Ron Howard took home the DGA trophy, the pendulum swung back to the Tom Hanks-starring vehicle. And though that film has to be listed as the favorite, there is no counting out that most determined of porkers, “Babe.”
The surprise picture of the year, “Babe” refuses to go quietly into the night. Its backers are the most passionate and, if it weren’t for the presence of fellow feisty underdog “The Postman (Il Postino),” it would have an excellent shot at pulling off a “Rocky”-type surprise. Momentum for it does continue to rise, just as it did in the days right before the nominations, and though a victory would still be an upset, it would be rash to say it couldn’t happen.
The pick: “Apollo 13.”
Turan did pick Mel Gibson for Best Director, Nicolas Cage (right) and Susan Sarandon (right), Ed Harris (Kevin Spacey), and Kate Winslet (Mira Sorvino).
Next, Marshall found this piece in the NY Times talking about the Color Purple/Out of Africa Year called
“OSCAR RACE BIGGEST TOSSUP IN YEARS.” I’m reprinting the whole thing here because unless you’re a subscriber you can’t access the archives:
”Prizzi’s Honor” has the Oscar for best picture sewed up, says a studio executive, because ”The Color Purple” and ”Out of Africa” will cancel each other out.
No, the Academy will vote for ”Out of Africa,” because it’s one of those stately epics Academy members love, says the man in the next office.
Psychologically speaking, insists the man down the hall, the Academy will vote for ”The Color Purple” to assuage Steven Spielberg’s pain at not being nominated for the best-director award.
But ”Witness” was the one picture everyone says they liked, adds a producer who is passing by.
The outcome of the 1985 Academy Awards race, which millions of Americans will watch on their television sets Monday night, still seems uncertain to the men and women who do the voting. With half a dozen of the major awards less predictable than they have been for years, only ”The Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a foreign film, seems to be out of contention for best picture. Usually a Consensus Forms
In the seven weeks between the nominations and Oscar day, there is almost always a consensus about the major awards. Academy members knew that ”Gandhi” would bury ”E.T.” in 1982, that ”Terms of Endearment” would sweep the major awards in 1983, that ”Amadeus” would be picked over ”A Passage to India” in 1984. It is a knowledge based on past votes and on the elderly, conservative, sentimental nature of a large block of Academy members.
This year there is consensus on only two likely winners. The 79-year-old director John Huston is the favorite for best director for a number of reasons, only one of which is his juicy direction of the black comedy ”Prizzi’s Honor.” He has been in frail health for several years, yet he managed to make a movie whose vitality was marveled at by critics. His one and only Academy Award as director came nearly 40 years ago. With that one, for ”The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” in 1948, he also brought his father, Walter Huston, an Oscar for supporting actor, the only Oscar in Walter Huston’s long and laureled career. If he wins for ”Prizzi’s Honor,” John Huston’s own career may be rounded off by bringing his daughter, Anjelica Huston, an Oscar for supporting actress. Miss Huston, who played a Mafia princess in ”Prizzi’s Honor,” is far and away the front-runner for that award.
In recent years, a single movie has tended to sweep, as though a movie worthy of being best picture must be best in everything from sound recording to costumes. ”Amadeus” and ”Gandhi” were nominated 11 times each, and each garnered 8 awards, results that the industry labeled ”boring” and ”predictable.” Films Attract Strong Feelings
This week, however, the hype seems to be mixed with genuine excitement and a feeling that there will be more than the usual one big surprise. That is partly because each of the five nominees for best picture, except ”Witness,” has strong supporters and equally strong detractors. Although ”Out of Africa” and ”The Color Purple” each have 11 nominations, knowledgeable observers feel that the awards will be more evenly divided than in any year since 1981.
In that year, the front-runners, ”Reds” and ”On Golden Pond,” were rudely surprised by ”Chariots of Fire,” which was named best picture without taking any other major award except for original screenplay. ”Chariots of Fire” and ”Raiders of the Lost Ark” took four Oscars apiece, while ”On Golden Pond” and ”Reds” each won three.
The most talked-about aspect of this year’s race is the effect that the snubbing of Mr. Spielberg by the director’s branch of the Academy will have on the awards. ”The Color Purple,” which got mixed reviews, was expected to win a lot of nominations – including best director – but few Oscars. However, the chances of ”The Color Purple” for best picture and of Whoopi Goldberg for best actress zoomed when Mr. Spielberg was snubbed. There are more than 1,000 actors in the Academy, and almost every one wants to be in a Spielberg movie. Mr. Spielberg was given the Directors Guild trophy the weekend before Academy ballots were sent out. Will Academy members get on the bandwagon or will they feel the director has been adequately comforted? Allegiance to Director
In the golden era of the studio system, Academy members spent their careers at a single studio and tended to vote for the movies made by that studio. Today, when film editors, actors and costume designers move from Paramount to Columbia at the rip of a contract, allegiances are to directors – a Sydney Pollack production, for example – rather than to studios. One likely factor in the uncertainty this year is that the nominated directors involved have no enemies. Even Mr. Huston, a controversial figure during his feistier days, is, at this point, without foes. By virtue of age, he has become revered.
This is the first year that video cassettes have had an effect – if not on the Oscar race, then certainly on the financial prospects of the Oscar winners. Because the producer of ”Prizzi’s Honor,” ABC Motion Pictures, was going out of business, cassette rights to the movie were sold last summer. Since the movie is already available in video cassette stores, none of the major theater chains will play it, even if it wins as best picture. 20th Century-Fox, the distributor of ”Prizzi’s Honor,” managed to get approximately 100 independent theaters and smaller chains to play the movie after it was nominated. The results, says Tom Sherak, president of distribution at Fox, were, ”at best, fair.” Usually, a best-picture Oscar can mean anywhere from $5 million to $15 million to the movie’s distributor from extra film rentals. A combination of acting and directing awards brings $1 million to $5 million.
For the first time, the Oscars are being used to sell cassettes. ”Plenty,” the film version of David Hare’s allegorical play about the fading of Britain’s prestige after World War II, got negative reviews and earned a scant $3 million in film rentals. Released on cassette by Thorn EMI/HBO to coincide with Oscar fever, ”Plenty” has sold 87,000 cassettes, with equivalent wholesale revenue of $4.4 million.
The advertising campaign for the video cassette deliberately stressed the star of ”Plenty,” Meryl Streep, who was identified as ”the Oscar nominee.” Miss Streep was nominated for ”Out of Africa,” not for ”Plenty.”
We found another Oscar article from the year Braveheart won. In March 1996, Stephen Hunter was reviewing movies for The Baltimore Sun. (He later became The Washington Post’s film critic). He wasn’t too impressed with Braveheart and barely mentions Apollo 13.
Kind of a scary year. “Sense and Sensibility” had the look of the swank, Brit, big-ticket piece the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences loves to honor with an Oscar. Then there was that anthem of gung-ho, can-do spirit, “Apollo 13,” patriotic as all get-out, another sort of movie the academy has a tendency to adore. A two-horse race, figure six for one, four for the other, with the Brit coming out in the lead.
Oops. Another miscalculation.
Instead, along came a Scotsman named William Wallace, the subject of Mel Gibson’s old-fashioned — and old; it dated from May — epic, to get 10 completely unexpected nominations, throwing the whole thing up in the air.
And then those blasted double-death downers “Dead Man Walking” and “Leaving Las Vegas” blow in from out of town and throw their butts down and will not go away. They mess it up even more!
And then from nowhere, this talking-pig opus, “Babe,” a faux-naif Aussie comedy about a porker who thinks he’s a barker and makes the nation believe it. Charm, audacity or just an extra-long “I want a Clark Bar” commercial?
The fat and easy days of “Forrest Gump,” when a professional prognosticator could knock out his picks in 10 minutes and go an easy 8 out of 10, ain’t around no more. This one is tough. You have to think about this one. Ouch! At my age, that hurts.
So here’s my best shot. If I go down in flames, don’t call to gloat. If you do better than I do, don’t write the editor. You’re still not getting this job.
Best Supporting Actress: Let’s begin with an easy one. Mia Sorvino put on a whiny voice, dyed her hair jet blond and got buff in the gym for the role of the tart in “Mighty Aphrodite.” Cheapness always works; you’d never suspect she’s a neo-conservative from Harvard! But she won’t win. Mare Winningham was an eye of calmness in “Georgia,” but she won’t win either, because nobody ever saw the movie, which hasn’t even opened in Baltimore. Kate Winslet was wonderful in “Sense and Sensibility” as headstrong, emotional, self-dramatizing “sensibility,” and, in a normal year, she would win.
The Oscar, however, will go to Joan Allen, for “Nixon” and her turn as Pat. It was an extraordinary impersonation that caught its subject’s iron dignity and stoicism as well as her intelligence, a stunner in a movie from the Oliver Stone who tends to make most Republicans look like fascist warmongers.
Best Original Screenplay: “Mighty Aphrodite”? No. Hollywood hasn’t really forgiven Woody Allen for his crimes, his crimes not being cohabiting with his wife’s adopted daughter but having a string of box-office failures and also hating Hollywood and going to Europe on a jazz tour during Oscar week. An Oscar for “Toy Story” in this category would completely miss the point: It was technique, not writing, that distinguished that computer-animated gem. “Braveheart” has a shot, but such an award would fail to honor the movie’s prime mover, Mel Gibson, and pay dividends only to his stalking horse, screenwriter Randall Wallace. “Nixon?” Nah.
Rather, here’s a chance that not even Hollywood will blow to pay homage to one of the cleverest films of the year. That’s the astonishing and delightful enigma, “The Usual Suspects,” with its Byzantine plot and its nostalgic insistence on a mythic master criminal pulling all the strings. Screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie will nab the golden boy.
Best Adapted Screenplay: You’d think Mike Figgis for “Leaving Las Vegas,” as a way of rewarding him for his astonishing audacity in making Hollywood want a movie nobody in Hollywood wanted. Wouldn’t “Babe” have a chance, too, as a nice way to memorialize a film that’s cute but probably not going to go all the way? Factor out “The Postman” and “Apollo 13,” the first because all the nominations are enough,the latter because no one really liked it a lot.
That means the novelty nomination will get it — actress Emma Thompson for her brilliant adaptation (six drafts in longhand on yellow tablets while waiting for the blocking to stop and the shooting to start on a decade’s worth of other movies) of “Sense and Sensibility.” Who could resist that one? Tinseltown still loves a good story.
Cinematography: Not a great category this year, a year in which few films were visually distinguished. Most experts seem to be picking “Braveheart,” but I found its photography conventional: Auld Scotland looked much more poetic and resonant in “Rob Roy.” “Batman Forever” was gleamingly professional, big-studio filmmaking but for that same reason coldly unmoving. “Shanghai Triad” was probably the best-photographed film of the year, yes, but the close-knit, tribal cinematographers aren’t going to acknowledge an Asian film as such. Nobody saw “A Little Princess.”
Actually, the best-photographed film of the year wasn’t even nominated, that being Figgis’ brilliant “Leaving Las Vegas,” shot in a super-16 that, blown up to 35, had a powdery, gritty, doom-laden feel. Rather, the Oscar will go to Michael Coulter for his green and lovely “Sense and Sensibility,” which made the 19th century look like a walk in the park on a beautiful late-May Sunday.
Foreign Language Film: I love this category because I’ve never seen most of ’em and I don’t have to be depressed if I blow it. So I’m picking “Antonia’s Line,” from the Netherlands, not that I’ve seen it or “All Things Fair” from Sweden or “Dust of Life” from Algeria or “O Quatrilho” from Brazil. It’s the most famous and has gotten the best reviews. I have seen “The Star Maker,” from Italy’s Guiseppe Tornatore, another love poem to the cinema, but so many find it a disappointment after “Cinema Paradiso” that it’ll probably swoon.
Best Supporting Actor: The race here is between Ed Harris, outstanding as the technocrat commander of the earthlings in “Apollo 13,” and Kevin Spacey in “The Usual Suspects,” and if you’ve seen the movie you know why, but I won’t tell you if you haven’t. I liked Tim Roth’s great turn at nastiness in “Rob Roy” as Archie Cunningham, fop and duelist. Brad Pitt was noisy in “12 Monkeys,” but he’ll eventually earn the Big One as his career continues to swell; James Cromwell of “Babe” is the dark horse. But no. I’m going with Spacey, who’s emerged recently as one of the most reliable and fascinating character actors in Hollywood.
Best Actress: A four-horse race. Factor out at the top Meryl Streep from “The Bridges of Madison County,” included in the category merely to fill it out. Here’s the theory behind each of the other contenders: Elizabeth Shue, for “Leaving Las Vegas,” because Hollywood loves it when a good girl goes bad. Sharon Stone, for “Casino,” because Hollywood loves it when a bad girl stays bad. Emma Thompson for “Sense and Sensibility,” because Hollywood loves it when a good girl stays good. And the winner: Susan Sarandon, for “Dead Man Walking,” because Hollywood loves it.
Best Actor: Massimo Troisi, the star of “The Postman,” had the best publicity gimmick — he died the day after shooting. Sentimental H-wood might eat that up. Sean Penn had the best greasy, white-trash pompadour in “Dead Man Walking.” Richard Dreyfuss had the best sense of self-loathing in “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” and Anthony Hopkins had the best fake chin and hairline in “Nixon.”
But this is Nicolas Cage’s year: In “Leaving Las Vegas,” he had the best sense of ironic, tragic doom, the best joie de vivre in the face of his own impending destruction. He made you care about one of the biggest losers in screen history. Besides, God is kind to babies, the United States of America and drunks. See what He did for Ray Milland in “The Lost Weekend”?
Best Director: Oy. Ummf. Ugh. Blecch. And this is only the second hardest category! Michael Radford, an Englishman, reinvented himself as an Italian in “The Postman,” and that always pleases people. On the other hand, the super-aggressive Miramax’s super-aggressive marketing campaigns can turn more people off than on. Chris Noonan blew America away with “Babe,” a wholly unexpected hit and quite an astonishing movie, for a movie about a pig. Tim Robbins was furiously even-handed “Dead Man Walking,” making both pro- and anti-capital punishment arguments with equal fervor, but in very liberal Hollywood, that might hurt rather than help. Mel Gibson represents a long-established Tinseltown pattern: the big star who puts money, reputation and effort on the line to make “his” picture — a picture nobody else wanted — and delivers a stunner in “Braveheart,” though in truth it was a very conventional picture.
But I think the award will go to Mike Figgis for “Leaving Las Vegas,” which for bizarre tribal reasons wasn’t even nominated for best picture, despite the incredible reviews and the brilliant // success. But “Las Vegas” is a total Figgis thing: He found the original book, he wrote the screenplay, he got the financing (in France, after everyone in Hollywood turned it down), he talked the hot young actors into appearing in it, he scored it and he went on the publicity tour to shill it. He deserves it, and I believe the academy will recognize that, for his heroism if nothing else. Hollywood is a tough town to be brave in, and nobody knows that better than Hollywood.
Best Picture: Oy. Umf. Ugh. Blecch. Really hard. There seems to be a consensus building for “Babe” primarily because it’s such a charmer, such a delight. But “Braveheart” is also the kind of epic, old-fashioned movie that the academy’s older members like very much (the whole academy votes in this one category, so the choices tend to skew more conservative). “The Postman” has the same nicey-nice values, but I believe the nomination will be enough. “Apollo 13” has lost most of its cachet of late and doesn’t look to be a contender.
But I think in the end the old patterns will reassert themselves: “Sense and Sensibility” is a safe choice; it can’t be criticized by anybody, and it represents the outfit’s consistent fantasy view of itself, as a sort of “Masterpiece Theater” of the global village.
1995 was an interesting year, a lot of highly rated films today arent your usual oscar fare (Se7en, Toy Story, Before Sunrise, Heat, Usual Suspects, etc).
1985 was a bad oscar year. But in saying that, Runaway Train & Salvador are in my top dozen films of all-time (got some good acting noms, but not oscar fare).
Of course, 2005 was rather borderline too. 1975 is the only decent …5 year from memory. Maybe 2015 will be a bad oscar year?
@Zach: And splits never happen when people expect them to.
Amen. My cardinal rule of Oscar predicting has been Never bet on the split. This goes back to 1974, when pundits were predicting overwhelmingly that Francis Coppola would win Best Director, a makeup for ’72 when he was upset by Bob Fosse and an acknowledgement of a year when he had two films nominated for Best Picture.
But GODFATHER PART II, which was not the box office hit its predecessor had been, was widely expected to lose to CHINATOWN, which had won the Golden Globe, and for which Jack Nicholson was almost universally predicted to win Best Actor. One column, Gary Arnold’s in THE WASHINGTON POST, even put Faye Dunaway in the winner’s circle too, which would have made CHINATOWN the first film since IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT to win for both lead performances.
Of course, Coppola pulled in his film with him, and Nicholson had to wait until the following year to win along with his female co-star.
When splits happen, they are almost always unexpected. There are two types of splits–either a DGA winner (Spielberg in ’98; Ang Lee in ’05) wins but another, less auteurish film by a less well-known or esteemed director (SIL, CHICAGO), pulls out Best Picture. The other kind sees the DGA winner upset at the Oscars (Fosse over Coppola, ’72; Soderbergh over Lee, ’00; Polanski over Marshall, ’02).
Splits, when predicted, don’t materialize. The director pulls in the picture after him most of the time; see 2006, when most on this site were convinced that Scorsese had to win finally, but few were persuaded that THE DEPARTED was BP material.
This is one of the reasons why history strongly favors Spielberg to pull in LINCOLN with him on Oscar night.
Gene Shalit and Joel Siegel used to issue morning-of Oscar predictions for TODAY and GOOD MORNING AMERICA, respectively. I distinctly recall one of them–Siegel, I think, but this is from memory–predicting THE COLOR PURPLE for Best Picture and John Huston for Best Director.
The only thing I remember about 1991 was the fact Beauty and the Beast got nommed and lost. 8-year old me read that in the paper the next day and was mad. 20-some odd years later, I still think it got robbed. Ha.
An interesting aside, I enjoyed the comment in the article about the Weinstein machine already being tiring as it pushed Il Postino. Who would have guessed what that machine would go on to do. Both in the original incarnation, and once again after it looked like Cold Mountain and Disney had done it in.
Although always a lover of movies to whatever extent, I became an instant mega Oscar fanatic since the year leading up to Ghost, The Godfather Part III, Awakenings, Dances With Wolves and Goodfellas. I was 12 going on 45. The eighties seemed to leave behind them a trail of seriously poor, if not always unexpected Best Picture winners {barring Amadeus and Platoon}.
It was not to everyone’s taste but Dances With Wolves was a typically classic Oscar winning movie carried in most part by the great John Barry. My dad loved it beyond words, took me to see it, and I fell in love too. I really dove in and swam that year into the geeky, exciting world of cinema and Oscars like never before. And I have not looked back since.
On that year, and perhaps a little in retrospect, I can see why people think Dances With Wolves was undeserving. Awakenings and Ghost were sugar-coated but perfectly fine, and The Godfather III was perhaps a decade or so too late. It was a new decade, and perhaps the Oscar world needed an epic crowd-pleaser to win big. Costner peaked too with Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves that year, he was well liked, and directed a very good movie that ticked all the right boxes. Regardless of whether Scorsese was owed, Goodfellas was, and is, an amazing piece of cinema all round. Not as flashy as the consequential Pulp Fiction or Boogie Nights but just as effective, if not more so. In the seventies Goodfellas would probably have won without any of the politics.
But then I watched history being made as The Silence Of The Lambs knocked JFK and Bugsy off their perches, it was an exciting rather than disappointingly turn of events. I mean, we’re talking serial killer thriller were faces get eaten, over classic, lavish gangster picture with Warren Beatty and historical American milestone biopic with Kevin Costner. Both directors Barry Levinson and Oliver Stone were liked and had won gold before. And both were excellent movies. But this was a nice surprise indeed.
I could cover the remaining twenty years with this, but nobody will read it. Shit, I could write a 300 page book on this. On each year.
I could talk about how the Academy played it safe in the nineties {and perhaps got lazy} with substantial “epic” movies like Unforgiven, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient and Titanic, but acknowledged the bolder movies with Original Screenplay awards {The Crying Game, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Fargo, Good Will Hunting}.
I could talk about the campaign movies like Shakespeare In Love. Or how Million Dollar Baby, The King’s Speech and Crash crept up at the end and crashed the party {pun intended}. Meaning movies like Sideways, The Social Network and Brokeback Mountain sadly fell sideways {pun intended, again}. Or the movies that were never in any doubts like Schindler’s List, Slumdog Millionaire and American Beauty. I could even talk about the movies I prayed to gather momentum so they could be deservedly recognised like Mulholland Drive, Inception and Magnolia.
Great article this one, it has really stirred up and brought to the surface each and every year I follow the awards season and how things change over and over and over. No matter what wins each year, that buzz will never tire me, it will always thrill me. And it will always disappoint me when it is all over for another year…
Oh yeah, weren’t Haneke and Zeitlin not DGA nominees either? If they win BD, just as funny…..
@Elton Almeida:
Was the person voting all those people in SLP somehow IN the movie?
Based on just those three you would think things look really good for Jennifer Lawrence and not so good for Lincoln as BP. I still think DDL has it for Lincoln despite the one person giving their vote to Joaquin Phoenix. Also, if that voting actor is NOT associated with SLP yet is any indication of the thinking amongst the actor’s branch in general, the largest branch of the Academy, we may be in for a few surprises.
Although the tide seems to be going Argo’s way, I’ve never thought SLP was out of it. Lincoln isn’t either from the sheer status of being atop in terms of number of nominations but NONE of those people are voting Lincoln for BP and even Speilberg doesn’t seem to be getting universal backing for director. As I have said before–more than once I think on this site–nothing would be funnier to me than to see David O. Russell, snubbed by the DGA, win best director, the polar opposite of what happened to Ben Affleck.
Now watch Life of Pi pull off the upset LOL.
Ran was the best picture of 1985 and Leaving Las Vegas bp of 1995′. Braveheart and gLadiator are 2 of the worst bp winners in Oscar history.
Hey there. You know, I couldn’t bear the pressure of GD, truth be told. Too many people watching. It just spooked me a little. But yeah, Argo’s win would be unprecedented but that’s what we’re all banking on, right?
Sasha, I wish you hadn’t picked up the ball and left GoldDerby; someone needs to tell all the Argo lemmings “I told you so”. Best Picture winners almost always also win Oscars for acting, directing or both, with writing as a good boost. Lincoln has both acting & directing (even if Tommy Lee Jones loses), plus Tony Kushner. With no directing nom and its only acting nom running dead last, even a writing win won’t be enough for Argo.
Driving Miss Daisy had not only Jessica Tandy, but also nommed performances by Morgan Freeman & Dan Aykroyd, plus Alfred Uhry’s script from his own Pulitzer-winning play; with that team Bruce Beresford was just a glorified DP, so it’s no wonder he wasn’t nommed. It’s the exception that proves the rule; Oscar will snub Argo just like it did The Color Purple & Apollo 13.
Just looking at the acting choices, it’s clear only the first Oscar voter in the LATimes article is typical; despite his ZD30 grudge he has only one acting variation from SAG (De Niro over Jones), which is normal. Voter 2 is a SLP fangirl; no film has EVER accomplished the “super-sweep” (ALL FOUR acting races on top of Picture, Director & writing) she gives SLP. And Voter 3 is DQ’ed by having only one front-runner in his acting races (Hathaway, the most obvious one).
There seemed to be an air of suspense surrounding those two particular Oscar races according to all the pundits/journalists and what the contents of their articles indicate.
This year…..not so much. It will be interesting to see if this year’s Oscars are indeed an afterthought of everything before it….or if we actually get a WTF result….
hey guys, i think you are not thinking this right.
the directors branch isn’t the whole academy. this is called a reification. the academy is not a living thing that, well, thinks. they are just guys who vote for whatever they sake for, and that’s it. the directors branch from the academy didn’t like argo. well, that doesn’t mean that, god, this means anything. it does only mean that the 350 guys from the 6000 don’t give a fuck for argo.
there is only one indicator that argo has ANY STRENGTH: alan arkin’s nomination on the actors branch. because, come on, are you kidding me? haha; the guys really liked it to push this nomination. OR they just like arkin.
argo for picture, spielberg for direction. well, i think that everybody would be happy.
I like Kidman (don’t love), but To Die For is so hard for me to watch. I feel bad that is the role so many people point at when discussing Kidman roles. Better than that Irish Scarlet O’hara she did back then, but only just.
Speaking of Aussies, when does Cate get back into these races. I miss her runs for the Oscar.
1995 was an incredible year for lead actresses, probably among the top 2 or 3 for the category.
I also thought Julianne Moore was mesmerizing in Safe, and I love Toni Collette in Muriel’s Wedding.
L.A. Times talked with 3 academy members – one producer, one actress and one director – about their ballots choices. It’s pretty curious:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/moviesnow/la-en-how-voted-20130207,0,1623508.story
Oh, I forgot, Kidman was absolutely vapid in Rabbit Hole. No emotional range whatsoever.
/sarcasm
People are calling Kidman wooden in To Die For??? What performance were you watching? It’s still considered her finest performance by many circles, and she not only gives a brilliant show on screen, she radiates sexiness like never before. But Best Actress 1995 was indeed a strong list:
Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking
Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas
Sharon Stone, Casino
Meryl Streep, The Bridges of Madison County
Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility
That one critic saying Streep was just ‘filler’ is nuts- its one of her best performances, and she totally deserved it. Many people don’t like that Stone made the cut, but I loved her, and when she won the surprise Drama Golden Globe she was suddenly a liable contender, though I am glad Sarandon finally won.
1995 should have been Casino and Scorsese year.
Sharon Stone was great too.
My Nicole can be whatever she wants to be! 😀
And I’d just like to add that Nicole Kidman is great! I’ve always loved her. She just picks some weak or sick films, and she’s hard to cast–she thinks she’s a character actress, and wants to be one so badly, but she should have embraced her leading lady attributes.
Unfortunately, how many leading ladies are there today who actually get leading-lady types of roles? Very few historical dramas are made any more, and when they are, they are male-centric (poor Emma Thompson too!). Meryl literally gets the one great role every year or so. Winslet is close behind.
In some of her earlier films (NOT To Die For), she’s a little flat and uninspired. The Paperboy was actually one of her best performances in years; she just had nowhere to go with that character.
Fascinating reading!
If there has to be a surprise Winner this year a la Braveheart or Chariots of Fire, it can only be Silver Linkngs Playbook that Will leave the 2 heavy favorites that are Argo and Lincoln on the side.
I’m rooting for Lincoln Spielberg and DDL.
I also think the guild décided to compensate Affleck’s best director’s snub and gave him all those awards.
Maybe the Academy Will now want to compensate all that Spielberg guild snub and make things right!
I also want Spielberg and Lincoln to win just to see Jeff Wells’ face!!!
“Incidentally, I think that gets overlooked, but the fact is the Academy changes, it is not a monolithic entity. These rules we set were established by following an Academy that is constantly reinventing itself.”
Not only does the Academy constantly reinvent itself, but I’m not even sure that the Academy feels the same way on the eve of nominations as it does now–even with respect to Picture, which you’d think is a pretty stagnant category over the year. Argo may not have won this much if Affleck hadn’t been snubbed. And those directors may have legitimately not wanted Argo, but they may have changed their minds or are outnumbered now!
Driving Miss Daisy was never expected to get a director nomination, and despite three strong performances, it’s not considered a director’s film, especially in such a strong year for big names. The same can’t be said for either Apollo 13 or Argo, especially given the kinds of directors nominated in the place of both. But what matters more — nominations or precursors? This year we find out.
“Also, how interesting that, in 1995, the notion of predicting a film to win Best Picture without a director nomination doesn’t seem so radical.”
I think people didn’t have Internet and they just didn’t have access to, or truly understand, Oscar stats. That, or the Daisy situation had happened so recently that people thought it was going to be a regular thing.
Daisy had the actors behind it. Supposedly Apollo 13 did too, and the other top guilds, winning SAG, PGA, and DGA. But it is not really an actors’ film. It’s more a director’s film, so the Ron Howard snub suggested that the Academy Directors Branch wasn’t supporting it. You would think Argo would follow the same path, but it’s been winning everywhere and has the cache of Affleck/Clooney. Also, people just don’t seem to “like” its competition enough, except for SLP.
Looking back on 1995, I would think it would come down to Braveheart and Apollo 13. It’s surprising that the two biggest films about the space race — A13 and The Right Stuff — both missed out on Director nominations. You can’t fault Braveheart’s win, though. It would be nowhere near my personal choice in 1995 with the wealth of smart and entertaining films to choose from. But it was a big epic, right up the Academy’s alley, and it has secured its place in film history despite Gibson’s tarnished legacy.
The other thing about Apollo 13 is that it’s overly sentimental at times, and this is coming from a Spielberg fan! (I only think Spielberg pushed things too far in War Horse, and maybe Hook, though that was a childhood favorite, so there.) Braveheart is sweeping, and people love it. Apollo 13 is an important real-life story, and I know Kathleen Quinlan got a nomination and all, but it’s better as a space thriller and a technical achievement than a poignant drama. And poignant drama trumps technical achievement with both the Directors Branch and the Academy at large.
How does this relate to 2012? Well, I don’t think Pi is winning. I don’t think Argo is “that film” that makes everybody feel, but it’s not exactly trying to be either. I thought Lincoln was truly poignant and not a bit overwrought, overly sentimental, or strained, whereas the same cannot be said for Argo even though it’s more of a political thriller than a human drama anyway.
But if Braveheart could win, I think Lincoln could win, for different reasons. Braveheart is one of those rare BPs without a win for acting or writing. There was no acting nomination (i.e. Gibson). The screenplay won WGA but lost to a film not up for BP. Perhaps if The Usual Suspects was up for BP, it could have given Braveheart some heat.
We make a big deal about the lack of a director nomination, but Titanic is the last film to win BP without a win in acting OR writing. But that was a sweep otherwise.
I don’t know how Argo wins Picture without Screenplay. I don’t know how SLP goes home empty-handed, and David O. Russell is the true face of the film. I don’t know how JLaw wins an Oscar for that character. I don’t know that Amour has the juice for anything more than a Foreign Film win despite the Picture and Haneke nods (Il Postino?). But I don’t know that Lincoln has the passion behind it even if DDL, Spielberg, Kushner, and Jones all win, though at that point, is this another Brokeback?
BABE’s Oscar acclaim remains one of the all-time mysteries to me.
I’m sure I’ve seen The Colour Purple before Out of Africa. I like both movies, but I understand why the latter won so much that Oscar night.
IMO it’s just so epic Oscar bait the Academy could nor refuse to bite.
That’s why I’m actually still shocked that “Lincoln” is not in that position.
(But who knows? Even though Argo won everything, or amost everything so far->the Academy still could vote for Lincoln. At least I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they do)
*lol*
And I know I’m the ONLY one in the whole wide world that really likes Kidman in The Stepford Wives. Can’t help it. She’s hilarious. As was Glenn Close!
Or Meryl in Heartburn. I love love LOVE her in that! <3
Both are parts of my "guilty pleasure" movies, for sure.
Happy Valentine BTW! 8)
Paddy, I guess it wasn’t as remarkable to win without a director nod since Driving Miss Daisy just won a few years before. So while a ding, perhaps not seen as fatal. Particularly since that was pretty much the same Academy (ie people).
Incidentally, I think that gets overlooked, but the fact is the Academy changes, it is not a monolithic entity. These rules we set were established by following an Academy that is constantly reinventing itself. So while broad strokes can be seen (sentimental, Hollywood-centric, love the Brits), specific things don’t necessarily matter. America never voted for an African-American for president until it did. Then it did it twice. What could not have happened in 1960 or 1980, suddenly could in 2008 because of change. 70 years of a track record is interesting but not necessarily telling. I think history will be made when Argo wins.
I just wish it didn’t come at the expense of who it will. I’m still holding out hope for my wish (Lee for director, Lincoln for pic), but I feel like I am on Titanic. And not the king of the world part.
Jason Travis… Babe, “forgettable”? My #2 film of the 90’s? The BEST directed film of the decade?
OUCH. Specially when you vindicate “Leaving Las Vegas”… Just compare to my BP line up…
Babe (winner)
Dead Man Walking (third)
Get Shorty (fifth)
Se7en (second option)
Toy Story (fourth)
We couldn’t be more different in taste about what a great film is.
If we were going to compare 1995 to 2012, Amour would be Il Postino, Life of Pi would be Babe, Apollo 13 would be Argo, Sense and Sensibility probably would be either Les Miserables or Silver Linings Playbook, and Braveheart would almost undoubtfully be Lincoln.
Guess which my bet still is. Life of Pi, second in my bet. I still doubt Argo will win this. If Argo wins, in these conditions, it will still be the biggest – probably – anomaly in Oscar history. Specially OVER Lincoln-Spielberg-Day Lewis.
Also, how interesting that, in 1995, the notion of predicting a film to win Best Picture without a director nomination doesn’t seem so radical. Kenneth Turan rules Sense and Sensibility out for that reason, but then predicts Apollo 13 despite it. And Stephen Hunter not only predicts Sense and Sensibility, but then predicts Mike Figgis to win Best Director, despite Leaving Las Vegas’ lack of a Best Picture nomination in addition!
Nicole Kidman is just about as fine an actress as exists in the industry today. Harumph!
Poor Prizzi’s Honour! Aljean Harmetz had a lot of faith in it. A better choice than Out of Africa. We all know about poor The Colour Purple already, that’s why I don’t bemoan its failure.
Stephen Hunter was in a right mood when he wrote that piece…
Correction to my last post….didn’t mean to lump Braveheart in as “an outright bad choice.” I’m pretty meh about the film personally but then again, 1995 wasn’t brimming with truly standout choices. There were a lot of films from that year I thought were very good (Toy Story, Seven, American President, Dead Man Walking, Apollo 13, Heat) but none that I thought were truly great. Weirdly, I don’t have much of a problem with an average, Braveheart-ish film winning if it isn’t beating anything that’s truly outstanding, even if I hold all the movies I cited in much higher regard than Braveheart.
It perhaps doesn’t bode well for Argo’s historical significance if its most recent historic comparables are Out Of Africa, Braveheart and Driving Miss Daisy — three of the more forgettable, “geez, that won?” Best Pictures in recent history. Yet that said, I obviously liked Argo a ton more than either of those three films and even if Argo isn’t your favourite film of 2012, I think most regard it one of the best of this stacked year. Argo certainly won’t be looked back on as an outright poor choice like OOA, DMD or Braveheart.
Interesting that in both 1985 and 1995 bears some parallels to Affleck’s position. Sydney Pollack and Mel Gibson were popular actor/directors, just in reverse (Pollack got into acting late, Braveheart was Mel’s second picture), and both were popular wins around Hollywood at the time. It seems so, so long ago that Mel Gibson was ever considered a popular guy but hey, it was true.
I’m not sure why the 2000 Best Director race has been so often cited in comparison to this year. It seemed obvious to me that Soderbergh would win since he had two nominations, and voters would go for the most meaty (Traffic) of those two films — common sense outweighed any momentum that Lee or Scott had. Had Soderbergh only been nominated for one of Traffic or Brockovich, it’s likely Scott or Lee would’ve taken the Oscar.
I love how Scott bludgeons Kidman over the head with The Stepford Wives and gives Streep a free pass for She-Devil. Or Heartburn for that matter. LOL
Yeah, of all the vapid actresses out there, Nicole Kidman must be the poster child or something. Because she was simply wooden in Margot at the Wedding, Birth, Eyes Wide Shut, The Paperboy, etc.
long time…not log time.
Nicole Kidman is just not that talented of an actress. It’s another example of Oscar’s failings that she has a best actress statue. Her best performances seem to be directly attributed to directors who were able to push her far enough to deliver something beyond vapidity and woodenness. See Baz Luhrmann and Alejandro Amenabar. Like when Zefferlli had to pinch Brooke Shield’s toe to get an approximation of sexual ecstasy on her face.
A great actress can shine under crappy direction. See Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a log time and yet I do not fault Meryl one bit and think she was as deserving as ever of Oscar.
Then watch Nicole Kidman in The Stepford Wives.
Or watch her in an interview and compare her responses and mindset with the likes of Meryl Streep or Jessica Lange or Sally Field or Diane Keaton.
On a similar note though divergent note as Jason above, I don’t understand Nicole Kidman in To Die For. I mean she can’t help the character is as flat as a pancake, but I think I have splinters from just watching how wooden she was. One of her most loved roles, but I just never got it. At all. Nothing else really to say.
“If Lincoln performs badly on Oscar night, this will always be remembered as the year when the Academy came up with every excuse possible to shun the quintessential Oscar movie.”
I’ve ruminated on this before, but yes, Lincoln is pretty much the quintessential Oscar film. Perhaps less syrupy and more critically-acclaimed than usual, but it checks off pretty much every box. And it is getting it’s ass kicked by, well, Argo of all films.
They were fun articles to read. I always enjoyed these kinds of stories, Tom O’Neil’s book serving as the springboard for my piquing my interest. I was just beginning to pay attention to the Oscars in 1995 (remember people being shocked by Babe’s nomination), but didn’t really follow a race until 1997 (I had never heard of the films in 1996 let alone seen them, so I skipped that year, ha). Always interesting seeing the races develop after the fact. A lot less stressful too.
Count me as someone who LOVED Braveheart winning Best Picture in 1995- clearly the superior film of the five nominated films. It still holds up well today and I could care less about people’s personal opinions regarding Mel Gibson’s personal tirades- Braveheart is a badass movie.
If anything, 1995 snubbed two films for best picture, not director- Leaving Las Vegas and Dead Man Walking should have been up for Best Picture, but instead wound up in best directing instead, with both lead actors nodded. Perhaps the dark and depressing nature of their stories caused voters to pass on them in the final cut, but this would have been a much stronger best picture lineup-
Apollo 13
Braveheart
Dead Man Walking
Leaving Las Vegas
Sense and Sensibility
Instead, we got Il Postino and Babe, which are forgettable today and in fact, I actually prefer movies like Se7en, Casino and hell- even Clueless- as great movies from 1995.
Also remember 1995 was arguably the strongest year for women in film- and Emma Thompson had no business being a Best Actress nominee- her place should have gone to Nicole Kidman in To Die For, Kathy Bates in Dolores Claiborne or Jennifer Jason Leigh in Georgia- to name a few.
I remember watching the ’96 Oscars in my dorm room (I was working over Spring Break) and being stunned that BRAVEHEART swept the awards that night. I think people were going with APOLLO 13 as a default choice and when BH started winning stuff…
Jumped on rec.arts.movies to voice my shock and outrage. 1995 and 1996 were terrible awards years.
And my favorite of the year, HEAT, didn’t get a single nomination.
Back in 1995, Karger was predicting Braveheart was going to win big. Since then I always looked for his predictions posted in the Entertainment Weekly magazine to find out what movie was going to win; however, I think he is lost this year with many changes of opinion.
Back in 1995, I thought Sense & Sensibility was going to win and this was confirmed when it won the Golden Globe, a very good predictor in those years, but everything changed when it failed to receive the nomination for best director. I was very disappointed because of this. During the ceremony I was hoping for Sense and Sensibility to take best picture, actress, screenplay, score, cinematography and costumes. It only took one. I thought Braveheart did not deserve to win and I kind of saw it as a Die Hard in Scotland.
Love reading these articles, just gets my mind going again lol Can lift and pick any argument you want from these articles to try and make a case for a winner in the present lol
I was 15 when The Color Purple was snubbed. I have never found Out of Africa particularly compelling despite several return visits to try and change my mind. The Color Purple’s loss has always left me with some bitterness.
Argo and Lincoln were both fantastic films. They were different, but both great experiences of film. While I enjoy the punditry and the attempt at predictions, if either one wins best picture, a really solid film won and a really solid film didn’t. I’m less keen on tossing around masterpiece on a recent film.
This isn’t – name your bitter loss – when a mediocre or simply lesser film won out. This is great filmmaking being rewarded by a large block of voters with predictable, but sometimes surprising tastes. Whomever wins.
My favorites that year were Sense and Sensibility and Babe. I thought Thompson and Winslet both deserved Oscars that year.
“And splits never happen when people expect them to. Remember Robert Altman for Gosford Park vs. Ron Howard? Another year when we had different forces pulling in different directions, and the nominees had something for everyone.”
“If Argo wins, we’ll always look back on it as that year the Oscars changed forever. If Lincoln wins, we’ll look back on this year and say that that was the film that was always going to win anyways. ”
Both nailed it. An expected split has never happened… but in one year: I think Ang Lee was the frontrunner to win for Crouching Tigger but Gladiator was the frontrunner to win BP. But as a whole, this is pretty much the truth. Little Miss Sunshine lost Best Picture. Saving Private Ryan was shocked by SIL in BP.
Spielberg and Howards’ DGA wins were only backed up by Kansas City. You can’t say the same about Affleck.
If Argo wins, we’ll always look back on it as that year the Oscars changed forever. If Lincoln wins, we’ll look back on this year and say that that was the film that was always going to win anyways. Which makes more sense?
If Silver Linings Shitbook wins, we will NEVER DOUBT WEINSTEIN AGAIN.
I remember being surprised by Braveheart (I was certain it would be Apollo 13), but not Out of Africa. Color Purple was toast and passe by Oscar night- like The Turning Point years before – and there was nothing else – not a great year.
Some of the pundit logic is bizarre in hindsight and some of it bang on. Pretty amusing. Same shit, different day.
Just a thought — going in to the awards for 1974 was anyone thinking The Godfather Part II though it was by far the years best film? No, they were talking Chinatown, which had won the Golden Globes a few weeks earlier — FRancis Ford Coppola’s film had won no major critics awards save the Best Director award from the National Society of Film Critics and the Directors Guild Award for Coppola — the latter meant little because Coppola had won for The Godfather and then lost the Oscar to Bob Fosse for Cabaret — no one, I repeat, no one thought Coppola and his film could win — but it did — it was one of those rare old times the Academy got it right and I feel they will get it right this year and honor Lincoln and Spielberg — by honoring Argo are they not displaying their own stupidity for not nominating Affleck??
As much as we slag the Academy, and we all do, they often get it right — they did in 1974 giving Best Picture and Best Director to one of the finest American films ever made — in honoring Lincoln, they will do the same, and I have to think some of them know that, I have to….
So much to laugh at. I guess we’re lucky now, with all the precursors and the benefit of 85 years of Oscar history with the click of a mouse (an outdated expression since most people don’t even have mice anymore!).
I wasn’t old enough to understand or care in 1995. But people thought a British adaptation (Sense and Sensibility) was going to win? Or a movie about a talking pig? I remember Babe being a big hit and critically beloved, but come on, this was Gandhi vs. E.T. all over again, except that Babe was always kind of overrated and SLOW.
What’s interesting about 1995 is that you had 2 of the biggest directing snubs ever, and the 2 winning screenplays (Usual Suspects and Sense & Sensibility) BOTH won without a Director nomination. That’s rare, but could happen again this year if Argo and Django win. (A big IF.)
The 1985 John Huston prediction — another example of the Academy voting for the movie more than the man. And splits never happen when people expect them to. Remember Robert Altman for Gosford Park vs. Ron Howard? Another year when we had different forces pulling in different directions, and the nominees had something for everyone.
I think if Argo loses the WGA, there needs to be a reexamination of the 10 years or so in the 1930s and 1940s when there were 10 BP nominees and a preferential ballot. Last time Sasha posted it, it was a glaring reminder that the Academy was very willing to spread things around in those years, and the Best Picture wasn’t necessarily the winner in Director/Screenplay/Acting. It could be Argo in Picture and Editing, which is the most it deserves, but with Spielberg as the only conventional pick among the Director nominees, and TLJ the most sensible Supporting Actor champ, it makes you wonder how Lincoln wouldn’t have the juice to take Picture.
If Lincoln performs badly on Oscar night, this will always be remembered as the year when the Academy came up with every excuse possible to shun the quintessential Oscar movie.
Most pundits WERE picking Apllo 13 or babe. I remember that season well. The thing that was interesting was Las Vegas had Braveheart as the favorite the day before the ceremony. I recall thinking it was very odd that they did considering NO ONE was actually picking it to win.
And then it did.
We’ve added another Oscar article above — from Stephen Hunter, March 24, 1996.
“Inside Oscar 2” by Damien Bona has a great look at the 1995 — according to him, most pundits were going with “Apollo 13” or “Babe.”
I’m not on the “Argo” bandwagon — I enjoyed the movie, but I’d place it at 4th or 5th on my ballot. If it does win, though, I’ll be glad for Grant Heslov. I remember first seeing him in a bunch of TV shows in the late 80s and early 90s, as well as “License to Drive.” Talk about paying your dues…
WOW, was incredible reading pieces from those years