1994 Academy Awards
I'm sorry if this thread has come up before. I ran a search and didn't find anything, so I guess I'm Ok.
In 1994, three great movies were released... - Forrest Gump. - Pulp Fiction. - The Shawshank Redemption. They were all up against each other for the main awards at the Oscars, and were all favorites to win. Forrest Gump won Best Picture, Best Actor (Tom Hanks) and Best Director (Robert Zemeckis). I can understand Tom Hanks winning Best Actor instead of John Travolta and Morgan Freeman. But I can't understand how Forrest Gump won Best Picture instead of The Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction. Frank Darabont (d. Shawshank...) wasn't even nominated for Best Director, Tarantino was, but Zemeckis won. Do you think that Forrest Gump deserved all those awards over Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption? |
I would have picked
Pulp Fiction John Travolta and especially Samuel L. Jackson as Actor in a Supporting Role over Martin Landau in Ed Wood |
everyone knows years like '94 were hard for other deserving movies ('76 as well) but the academy awards are a big pile of horse manure and you should know that as a common fact by now.
And even though i hate Robert Redford movies my favourite one of his, Quiz Show, came out that year and got no recognition because of those other movies. (Scorsese has a great character in that btw :) ) Ed Wood was also quite good Speed was one of the greatest action movies of the nineties Natural Born Killers was much under-appreciated The Lion King is the greatest Disney film ever Clerks one of the greatest independant films of the nineties The Mask was one of my favourite Jim Carrey movies as you can see there were some other quite good movies that came out that year and '94 is one of the reasons i became interested in cinema. unforunately it also made some crap like all years(eg. four weddings and a funeral, muriels wedding, little women,etc) :sick: |
Natural Born Killers would be my top film of the year
|
Originally Posted by Parky
Do you think that Forrest Gump deserved all those awards over Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption?
And I don't beilieve the race was as close as you'd like to think. Forrest Gump was the big favorite, and while there was a chance it would experience some backlash by the time votes came in, the chances of Pulp Fiction - the clear second place contender, getting enough of the older, conservative ballots to push it to the top were pretty slim. When Tarantino and Roger Avery went on stage to accept their Best Original Screenplay Oscar, Quentin knew damn well he would not be back to collect any more trophies that evening. Similarly Sam Jackson knew for sure Martin Landau was going to win Best Supporting Actor, and if he hadn't Gary Sinise would have. John Travolta was a bit of a sentimental choice for making such a big comeback, but Hanks was the clear favorite, and Tom setting history and becoming only the second actor to win in back-to-back years was an even better story. I think Uma Thurman had the best chance of a win among the Pulp actors, but Dianne Wiest, playing a conceited actress in a Woody Allen film, was pretty well a shoo-in there too. As for Shawshank, it has much more of a rabid following now than it did then. It even getting major nominations was a bit of a surprise, really. But I rememeber watching "Regis & Kathie Lee" for their Oscar predictions, and Kathie Lee Gifford said The Shawshank Redemption was far and away her favorite of the nominees and she hoped it would win. That pretty well sums up the kind of vote it was attracting then - mostly those who were sick of Gump already for whatever reason, but absolutely hated Pulp Fiction (and there were many, many Academy voters who though Pulp was inappropriate for The Oscars). The only real "controversy" in that year's nominations was that Hoop Dreams was snubbed in the Documentary Feature category, and also failed to become the first non-fiction film to crack the Best Picture category (it garnered only one Oscar nomination, for Best Editing...which it lost to Forrest Gump). I'm a huge David Letterman fan, and still have most of the ceremony on tape. I'm in the minority in that I thought Dave did an excellent job as host, but his performance was really the big news the following day (most of the reviews that he did a lousy job), and not that Forrest Gump went through, as predicted, and won most of the key big awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay) plus two more of its thirteen nominations (far and away the most heavily-nominated film that year). |
Originally Posted by Holden Pike
The only real "controversy" in that year's nominations was that Hoop Dreams was snubbed in the Documentary Feature category and also failed to become the first non-fiction film to crack the Best Picture category (it garnered only one Oscar nomination, for Best Editing...which it lost to Forrest Gump). |
Here are some of my favorite Letterman bits from that Oscar telecast...
Best monolgue joke: "One of the pictures nominated tonight for Best Foreign Film: Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Coincidentally, as I understand it, this is also how Arnold Schwarzenegger asked Maria Shriver out on their first date." Second-best taped bit: Dave drives around talking about movies with New York City cabdrivers. The highlight is when he tells one cabbie, "I only do one impression, really. It's Jack Nicholson. You wanna see it?" Cut to Dave beating Hell on the hood of the cab with a golf club - referencing a real-life incident from around that time where Nicholson did the same to another motorist's car after he apparently cut Jack off in traffic and Nicholson retrieved a club from his trunk (I believe it was a 9 Iron, and he showed good form, keeping his head down on the swings). Best taped bit: After showing his own big screen debut in Cabin Boy with the clip of Dave holding a stuffed toy sock monkey and asking, "Would you like to buy a monkey?", he explains he was not the first or only choice for the role. Then we are shown what is supposedly Cabin Boy audition tapes, with many other actors giving different readings of that simple line. The actors include Jack Lemmon, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Albert Brooks ("I'm confused: I thought I was playing the monkey"), Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Danny DeVito, Paul Newman, Michael Keaton, John Turturro, Anthony Hopkins and Barry White. Friipin' hysterical. Top ten list: TOP TEN SIGNS THE MOVIE YOU ARE WATCHING WILL NOT WIN AN ACADEMY AWARD 10. It still has the time code from the camcorder 9. Any combination of the words "police" and "academy" in the title 8. It's a movie about The Civil War, and General Grant is wearing Dockers 7. You hear somebody yelling, "Focus!", and you realize it's the director 6. It's a beautifully made documentary about two boys in the inner city trying to realize their dream of playing professional basketball 5. The last twenty minutes is a shot of Ritchie from Local 262 eating donuts 4. Your date had to jam a hypodermic needle full of adrynaline into your heart just to keep you awake 3. Before it starts you hear, "Thank you for coming to Loews, sit back and relax, this movie blows" 2. Nude scene with Uma Thurman replaced with a nude scene with Strom Thurmond 1. Four words: Dom DeLuise is Ghandi! |
As for my own personal taste, I don't think many of the nominees that year were particularly worthy or representative of the best work in film. But they rarely are. My nominations (with my choice of winner asterisked) would have looked something like...
BEST PICTURE Death & the Maiden Ed Wood Fresh Leon (aka The Professional) Shallow Grave* BEST DIRECTOR Danny Boyle, Shallow Grave* Tim Burton, Ed Wood Krzysztof Kieslowski, Three Colours: Red Roman Polanski, Death & the Maiden Boaz Yakin, Fresh BEST ACTOR Johnny Depp, Ed Wood* Ben Kingsley, Death & the Maiden Sean Nelson, Fresh Paul Newman, Nobody's Fool Terence Stamp, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert BEST ACTRESS Irene Jacob, Three Colours: Red Natalie Portman, Leon Kathleen Turner, Serial Mom Sigourney Weaver, Death & the Maiden* Kate Winslet, Heavenly Creatures BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Chris Eigeman, Barcelona Giancarlo Esposito, Fresh Martin Landau, Ed Wood Gary Oldman, Leon* Bruce Willis, Pulp Fiction BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hudsucker Proxy* Lena Olin, Romeo is Bleeding Alberta Watson, Spanking the Monkey N'Bushe Wright, Fresh Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Fresh, Boaz Yakin* Heavenly Creatures, Fran Walsh & Peter Jackson The Hudsucker Proxy, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen & Sam Raimi Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avery Shallow Grave, John Hodge BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Death & the Maiden, Rafael Yglesias & Ariel Dorfman Ed Wood, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski* Nobody's Fool, Robert Benton Once Were Warriors, Riwia Brown The Underneath, Steven Soderbergh So to say I didn't agree with the choice of Forrest Gump is an understatement. Clearly, I agreed with very little the Academy nominated from 1994. |
Originally Posted by Holden Pike
Here are some of my favorite Letterman bits from that Oscar telecast...
Best monolgue joke: "One of the pictures nominated tonight for Best Foreign Film: Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Coincidentally, as I understand it, this is also how Arnold Schwarzenegger asked Maria Shriver out on their first date."! I am so glad someone else loved Shallow Grave, most of my friends haven't even seen it :eek: http://www.ams.ubc.ca/clubs/filmsoc/...ow%20Grave.jpg |
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