Oversights by the Academy

[J.R.]

Any real film fan shouldn't consider the Oscars anything more than a meaningless popularity contest, but still I pay attention to the nominees and winners, and I've noticed many oversights-

Rick Baker, Best Makeup for Planet Of The Apes. The makeup in this movie was excellent. The actors really looked like apes and I forgot a couple of times that they weren't. A Beautiful Mind got the nod for only so-so old age prosthetics.

Memento got two very much deserved noms for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing, but it should have gotten at least a couple more, such as Best Actor for Guy Pearce, Best Supporting Actress/Actor for Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano and Best Director. It deserved Best Picture of course, but a movie this cool could never be nominated.  

That Fight Club did not get a mention for Best Film Editing or Cinematography is just inexcusable.

And is it just me, or does it seem like some films get undeserved nominations just to bulk up their overall count? Like when Shakespeare In Love or something gets Best Sound or Best Film Editing?

[Steven Millan]

                     Now,if only that damn "Planet of the Apes" remake wasn't so terrible,then Rick Baker would have easily nodded another Oscar to fit onto his much loaded trophy shelf,or would have at least renamed it "the Rick Baker Award for Best Special Make-Up".
                   Isn't it time to hand Tom Savini a permanent special Oscar?!

[Susan]

No you can't hold much validity to the oscars because the acadamy tends to be very biased and opinionated where the movies aren't considered and those behind it are. However considering SO many americans tune in, it's the only opportunity for indy or foriegn pics that are really worthwhile to ever get noticed...and often help the crowds rush out in mass to be exposed to something more than the hollywood machine. So I watch just to see what wins, tho usually it's never deservedly. But mostly I pay attention to the nominees because that's what counts..getting your name out there. I still can't believe 'run lola run' never was nominated that year for foriegn. You gotta wonder if they're on crack. I love indy and foriegn pics and not living in LA and NY i don't get many here and either have to pray they have good openings and can afford a wider release or get nominated and get a wider release (i prefer seeing these films in theaters vs. renting..then you have to wait along time!)

I never figured out how a pic wins for editing. To truly judge how deserved a film is wouldn't they have to view all the reels to see how it was all put together? ;-)

[Dano]

I always thought Stallone should have won for Rocky.  He's a wretched actor who has made some of the worst crap in all filmdom, but his performance in that one movie was extraordinary.

I don't recall the other nominees, but I am sure Dances With Wolves and Braveheart probably took the award from something more deserving.  And Driving Miss Daisy over Glory??

I still can't believe Samuel Jackson got edged by a Bela Lugosi impersonation.

[Fearless Freep]

I always thought Stallone should have won for Rocky. He's a wretched actor who has made some of the worst crap in all filmdom, but his performance in that one movie was extraordinary.

Probably because he was working hard to tell a story he really wanted to tell and he really believed in.

[Vermin Boy]

I think Christopher Guest's Waiting For Guffman was robbed for Best Editing; They assembled a tight, coherent movie from (reportedly) 72 hours of improv footage. That, my friends, is impressive.

Also, I haven't seen A Beautiful Mind, but I have a tough time believing that Ron Howard is a better director than David Lynch, Robert Altman, or Peter Jackson.

[Chadzilla]

The Academy Awards were created as an advertising gimmick.

The Academy will aways award any costume/period melodrama epic (I knew that A Beautfil Behind would win, just like Titanic, Schindler's List, Shakespeare in Love, Braveheart, Dance With Wolves, etc.) the top honors.  When the list is announced, the best picture sticks out like sore thumb.

Long term oversights/snubs will get a token Oscar (i.e. Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven).  Actors will receive stealth Oscars (i.e. an Oscar for a less than stellar piece of work to compensate for a brutal snub elsewhere, because the brutal snub was for a movie of questionable artistic vision - meaning it wasn't a costume/period piece epic melodrama).

If your movie is genre, you're toast (M. Night better make some costume melodrama or WW2 epic if he wants to win an award for either screenwriting or directing - chances are though he will be another Hitchcock, although his work deserves an award, he will not receive it because he writes/directs Twilight Zonish movies that feature ghost,super heroes, or aliens - same thing applies to Peter Jackson).

Genre movies win technical awards (sound, editing, score, sound effect editing) rarely anything else.

The only way your genre movie will when an Oscar is either because it is wildly popular (how else can you explain Ghost get a BEST SCREENPLAY Oscar?) or the movie's quality is inarguable (i.e The Silence of the Lambs) or both (i.e. The Exorcist) or an individual's work is an excellent and popular example of his/her body of work so the Academy bestows a token Oscar (i.e. Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar for The Omen) just to break a Susan Lucci like loosing streak.

[Neville]

Another way of getting the Oscar is to write / direct / star a sugar-filled drama with a disabled person as the main character.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the winner this year is gonna be "The road to perdition". I don't think it is a bad movie at all, but yet I believe it's getting too good reviews. C'on, it is a decent film with great performances, but it's not that fantastic and certainly not original at all.

[Dano]

Neville wrote:  Anyway, I'm pretty sure the winner this year is gonna be "The road to perdition".
*****  It is probably way too early to tell.  There's usually at least two contenders that get released in New York and LA on December 30th and released nationwide like a week before the Oscars.  Pending "The Two Towers" I could live with Perdition getting it though.

[J.R.]

That's what's really wrong with the Academy: It's run by people. Most films hoping to get nominations are released at the end of the year, making them fresher in voters' minds. A great film released in February has almost no hope of getting as many nods as an okay film released in December. I've heard lots of weird reasonings behind nominations and wins- The guy from Iris beat out Ian Mckellen for Best Supporting Actor last year because he also turned in a great performance in Moulin Rouge (So they say, I hate that movie), so he really won for both movies.

Hopefully this year the voters won't feel bad about snubbing a director in past years and give the award to Peter Jackson. If having the guts to try LOTR, and actually pulling it off, with great action, acting and all-around craftsmanship isn't an outstanding achievement in directing, I don't know what is.

[Susan]

I have a feeling this years oscars are going to be another one of those years of alot of nominated films the general public didn't see. They might throw in a big one or two but we may get stuff like "moonlight mile" and movies that maybe only people in NY and LA have seen.

The biggest uproar in recent years was the year of 'shakespeare in love', with a travesty! I would have been torn between "Saving private ryan" (which was a historically good drama piece with realistic depiction) or "LIfe is beautiful (which had all the right elements and chemistry a film needs, going beyond language barriers with it's appeal) over that piece of dribble. They have had a long history with snubbing spielberg until the schindler's list year when I think if they had dared that year a riot might have broken out and that would have been the end of it. ;-)

No awards show will ever be fair. They hardly acknowledge comedies or horrors as it is. It's a boobfest of schmoozing. The only real good that comes of it is putting the smaller films in the limelight for the general public.


Lord of the Rings and such may get a nomination (tho i'm skeptical how the acadamy would receive a sequel/prequel type film) but chances of it actually winning are slim to none.

[Chadzilla]

...and that is a mighty big honking if, then it will be for The Return of the King, the final movie in the trilogy.

That The Silence of the Lambs as a February release made its Oscar sweep all the more surprising (that and the fact it was a horror/suspense thriller)

[John]

I could be wrong, but I remember reading that nominations are bought, literally. Someone pays a fee and the nomination is entered.

[J.R.]

Miramax has openly engaged in buying nominations for years. How else could Chocolattacrap get a Best Picture?

And why can't comedies and action/horror/sci-fi get nods outside of technical categories? I find it much more rewarded to be scared or thrilled or laugh than to be depressed watching someone die or bored seeing people in period costumes.