SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF THE OSCARS
The Academy Awards is the pinnacle for actors, directors, writers, sound-men, producers, editors and practically a whole slew of people of artistic merit which are held once every year in March. There are way to many pictures for me to wax lyrical over down through the 96 years here, so instead I thought I'd take a look at some of the biggest mistakes in the Academy history. The films, directors, actors , male and female, that somehow went home empty handed, or weren't even nominated in the first place! Different strokes for different folks but here's my list.
Best Supporting Actor Snub; Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone.
With a star studded cast of Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott. Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Micheal Biehn and Stephen Lang , it would be easy to see how Val Kilmer could have been overlooked among his piers in this rollocking western but Kilmer stole virtually every scene as the gambling, womanizing, TB suffering Dock Holiday. The performance is considered one of Kilmer's finest and ranges from hilarious to heartbreaking. He's fiercely loyal to Wyatt Earp (Russell) and cuttingly sarcastic, commanding the screen--along with other strong characters--in a great deal of the film.
Amazingly he was completely overlooked for even an Oscar nomination which has gone down as an absolute travesty. He's duelling with Johnny Ringo (Micheal Biehn) brings out some of the best scenes in the film.
Best Supporting Actor that year would be Martin Landau for the brilliant ED Wood.
Best Actor Snub ; Sylvester Stallone: Freddy Heflin in Copland
Though this may seem a strange pick, its really not. Sly had made his name through the action genre with his impossibly shredded body, over the top action and a share of a few duds, but his role in Copland, going completely against type, showed just how fine and actor he can be. "Sly" would gain 40 pounds to fit into the role of the well intention-ed but rather child-like Freddy Helfin, a cop who patrols Garrison which is a town rife with his fellow officers and corruption.
And he's in with some big guns here. Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta and Robert Patrick to name but a few. But still he makes his scene presence felt. While saying that Cop Land has traces of soap opera it's basically becomes a western in its final shoot-out in a sort of High Noon scenario - the lone lawman abandoned by his Deputies, trying to take in his prisoner as he stands up to the bad guys who control the town. And he delivers hero and heartbreak in spades.
Best Actor that year would go to Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful
Best Actress Snub; Glenn Close as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction
It seems only fair that an actress should find her way into this list and performances don't come much finer that Glenn Close's turn as a psychotic, unhinged, spurned lover that sneaky Micheal Douglas accidentally gets himself involved with. A film which shocked back in 1987 (making a shitload of married men around the world worried their wife would find out about their lover, mistress or bit on the side) Close garners some sympathy at first. Let's face it Micheal Douglas is a dirtbag who thought he could treat his lover as an afterthought, but as the movie progresses we feel his uneasiness, as Close declares herself pregnant and hopeless in love with the panic stricken male lead.
The original ending had Douglas shooting Close and going to jail for her murder, but this cause outrage with the test screenings who wanted to see her blown away! They got their wish. Though Close did get an Oscar nomination for Best Actress she lost out to Cher in Moonstruck. She’s hardly a loser, but Close, 75, holds the record for the actress with the most Oscar nods who’s never won, with eight.
Best Director Snub; Stanley Kubrick for The Shining.
Not only is it amazing that Stanley Kubrick couldn't land the Oscar for Best Director with his adaptation of the classic Stephen King book - but the New York native was also overlooked for classic likes Spartacus (1960) Doctor Strangelove (1964), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). He's lost out four times for the Best Directing nod (though he did win for 2001; A Space Odyssey for Best Screenplay) but The Shining remains possibly my favourite, with a superb turn by Jack Nicholson. His rapid decent into madness is a joy to behold as is Shelley Duvall's performance (which of course was one of pure stress due to Kubrick's insistence on about 478 takes of each screen) - you've seeing a woman literally pushed to the edge. Unnerving, unsettling and memorable, a nod also to young Daniel Lloyd as Danny Torrance. I never drove my tricycle again in case I encounter two dead sisters in my hallway!
The Best Director Oscar would go to Robert Redford for Ordinary People.
Best Film Snub; Goodfellas
Almost any of director Martin Scorsese’s classics could have been included here, from Taxi Driver (1976) to Raging Bull (1980). But let’s single out Goodfellas, his dizzying, dazzling take on the New York City mob scene in the 1960s and 1970s, which somehow didn’t lead to glory in the Best Director and Best Picture categories in 1991. Instead, astonishing, it would be Kevin Costner's Western Dances With Wolves nabbed top honors. In what has become one of the most quotable films in cinema history (Don't pretend you haven't done Joe Pesci's "Funny How?" speech) it seemed a shoe-in for Best Picture, as Scorsese must have felt the Goodfellas, it hardly needs pointing out, is a masterpiece. De Niro and Joe Pesci are never better as the grizzled mob mentors to Liotta’s gangster newcomer, Henry Hill. The violence is shocking, the expletives never-ending , 300 swear words in all. But alas no Oscar for Best Film (though Pesci would win for Best Supporting Actor) Scorsese wouldn’t win until 2007 for The Departed.
Best Film Snub; Saving Private Ryan
Losing out on an Academy Award for Best Film is one thing. Losing out to a Shakespeare "comedy" is another. This is why Stephen Spielberg must have been stunned to see his 1998, 170 minute, epic World War II drama Saving Private Ryan astonishingly lose out to Shakespeare In Love for the Best Picture gong. The period romantic comedy swept the board at the 1999 ceremony.
For Best Film this should never have been the case. Considered one of the greatest films ever made.A film famous for its 24-minute opening scene of the Allied troops storming Omaha beach (filmed in Wexford) — had been widely hailed a masterpiece by critics. Moments earlier that evening, Spielberg had picked up the best director award, a sign that best picture was probably in the bag, too. But a stunned Harrison Ford opened the envelope and uttered the three words nobody thought they would hear and it wasn't Saving Private Ryan.
The win has gone down as one of the most controversial in Oscars' history — not only for the surprise result, but for the campaign that led up to it, which changed the awards landscape forever.
Best Supporting "Actor" Wilson the Ball (Castaway)
Yep, OK, I know there's no such award but for keeping Tom Hanks sane (when his would-be wife Helen Hunt had already made plans to forget him, get married, have a kid and buy a house) Wilson is the real star of the show.
Castaway, directed by Robert Zemeckis, was the biggest selling film of 2000 .Hanks plays a Fed Ex troubleshooter who is stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes somewhere in the South Pacific where he doesn't escape for a lengthy five years. With his sanity tested to the limits Hanks (who was nominated for Best Actor) befriends a volleyball (naturally named "Wilson") who keeps him on the straight and narrow as he plots his unlikely escape from the island using nothing but some cut down tree's, a mess of video tape and part of a door of a portable toilet.
Many will see the ultimate heartbreak of Hanks character Chuck Nolan, losing out of his love interest Helen Hunt when he makes it back to America, but it's really the loss of Wilson floating away accidentally towards the end of the movie that gets me. Hanks does a superb job of carrying Cast Away all by himself for about two-thirds of its running time but Wilson could easily have claimed top billing.
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