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The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actress – 1995
1995. Braveheart. Decent year, not a great year. Like Braveheart a lot, but, Best Picture? Not sure. Still a good choice based on the nominees, I think.
Mel Gibson wins Best Director for it — an easy (and good) decision based on the fact that DGA winner Ron Howard wasn’t nominated (talked about here). Nicolas Cage wins Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas, which I love as a decision, as I explained here. Susan Sarandon wins Best Actress for Dead Man Walking, which I really don’t like as a decision (she should have won one, but not this year. Elisabeth Shue should have won). And Kevin Spacey wins Best Supporting Actor for The Usual Suspects, which, aside from the whole lead/supporting thing, is an awesome decision.
So in all a pretty good year, capped off by this decision, which, despite my track record, I really love. A lot.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 1995
And the nominees were…
Joan Allen, Nixon
Kathleen Quinlan, Apollo 13
Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite
Mare Winningham, Georgia
Kate Winslet, Sense and Sensibility Read the rest of this page »
The Oscar Quest: Best Director – 1934
I love 1934. That will never change, because my favorite film of all time was made in 1934. And also It Happened One Night was this year too. Which, coincidentally, those are the two films I’ll pretty much be talking about in this article. So, that’s cool.
1934 is the first year of the single digit Oscar years, the first year they really figured out how to start doing things. They got up on their feet this year. It would take them another two years to get the Supporting categories in, but, they’re working at it. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to recap here, since It Happened One Night literally won everything. Best Picture, Best Actor for Clark Gable, Best Actress for Claudette Colbert, and yes, even Best Director.
I’m not even going to hide my opinion. I’m voting The Thin Man all the way here. It’s my favorite film, and nothing’s gonna change. So I’m gonna make this one as quick as possible, since, we all knew, before I walked in the goddamn door, which film I was gonna vote for.
BEST DIRECTOR – 1934
And the nominees were…
Frank Capra, It Happened One Night
Victor Schertzinger, One Night of Love
W.S. Van Dyke, The Thin Man
The Oscar Quest: Best Actress – 1973
1973 is one of those years I love so much it makes me want to say it real loud. But then I get worried that not everyone feels as strongly as I do, so I mostly keep it to myself. But, everyone loves The Sting, right? We’d all have voted for that over The Exorcist, right? Because those seem to be the only two. If you say American Graffiti, I’ll laugh at you. It’s a great film but — not over those two.
Anyway, the rest of this year was also pretty good. Or at least, above average. Jack Lemmon finally got his Oscar and won Best Actor for Save the Tiger. Tatum O’Neal wins Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon, which was a fantastic decision. Then John Houseman wins Best Supporting Actor for The Paper Chase, which I guess is okay, since he’s an acting legend, even though I’d have gone another way. Oh, and George Roy Hill finally wins his Best Director statue, which, was the best thing to come out of this year.
And now we have — the worst thing to come out of this year.
BEST ACTRESS – 1973
And the nominees were…
Ellen Burstyn, The Exorcist
Glenda Jackson, A Touch of Class
Marsha Mason, Cinderella Liberty
Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were
Joanne Woodward, Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams Read the rest of this page »
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor – 1996
Hey, look at that, it’s our example category. Way back when, back when I first introduced this Oscar Quest, I was explaining how these articles were gonna work, and I picked a random category by typing in two random numbers after “19–” and one of the categories at random. And I came out with Best Supporting Actor 1996. Who’d’ve thought it would take six months to get to it?
Anyway, 1996 is a year that’s fresh in most people’s minds. The English Patient, a film that most people can say probably didn’t deserve to win, won Best Picture over the superior Fargo and even the superior Jerry Maguire. Anthony Minghella wins Best Director for it as well (talked about here), but with one goes the other. Juliette Binoche wins Best Supporting Actress for it, which I’m cool with, since I like her very much. Best Actress this year went to Frances McDorman for Fargo, which is awesome, don’t cha know. And Best Actor — yeah. Geoffrey Rush wins for Shine. I believe I had quite a few words to say about that one here. So in all, I think this is a pretty terrible year. Next to 1990, probably the worst of the decade. Great. Work’s cut out.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – 1996
And the nominees were…
Cuba Gooding Jr., Jerry Maguire
William H. Macy, Fargo
Armin Mueller-Stahl, Shine
Edward Norton, Primal Fear
James Woods, Ghosts of Mississippi Read the rest of this page »
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actress – 1977
Oh I know I must almost be done with this year. I’ve talked about everything but Best Actor. And Best Picture, but you should be able to guess that those are coming last, because you need to end with your good stuff. But, if we all didn’t know by now, this is the year Annie Hall beat Star Wars. And that about says it all.
Richard Dreyfuss wins Best Actor for The Goodbye Girl, Diane Keaton wins Best Actress for Annie Hall (written about here), Jason Robards wins Best Supporting Actor for Julia (written about here), and Woody Allen wins Best Director for Annie Hall (bemoaned here). I like being mostly done. I don’t really have to do the big intro.
This is one of those categories — hell, this is one of those years, aside from the bad Best Picture choice (but also, good Best Picture choice, which I’ve sort of explained in the other ones, since The Turning Point was the expected winner) — that people just ignore, because it’s business as usual. It’s not particularly exciting. But we’ll do our best to make it interesting.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 1977
And the nominees were…
Leslie Browne, The Turning Point
Quinn Cummings, The Goodbye Girl
Melinda Dillon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Vanessa Redgrave, Julia
Tuesday Weld, Looking for Mr. Goodbar Read the rest of this page »
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