A blog about the Oscars

And the Oscar goes to...

Last Sunday was the night of the Academy Awards and just as always, there were agreements and disagreements with some of the Oscars, yet it is still highly regarded as the most important event in the film industry. Now, does the hype live up to the real thing?

I don't want to talk specifically about last night, but I will take a couple of examples from it to illustrate some of my points. Perhaps the most evident is Meryl Streep finally winning her third Oscar; I was kind of surprised that in her acceptance speech she didn't say something like "well, I guess I have proven that nobody loses seventeen Oscar nominations." Needless to say that an actress of Streep's caliber doesn't need an Oscar (or any other award) to be recognized as the actress of the year, or as one of the greatest actress of all time. Christopher Plummer was also a winner on Sunday night, on his second nomination -which came three years ago-. Among the losers, Glenn Close, Kenneth Branagh and one of my favorite actors, Gary Oldman, all of them Oscar worthy on many of the roles they have portrayed through their career. All of this added to editions from previous years, adds up to the fact that it is hard to recognize and hand what is known as one of the most prestigous awards, to people who may deserve it in such a difficult and competitive environment.

One of the greatest actresses of all time picks up her third Oscar.

Michael Jordan was NBA Finals MVP
six times. That's the advantage of sports
awards: objectivity.

The problem with the Oscars in my opinion is that it is an award based on subjective opinions rather than clear down to Earth facts. Sportsmen have the luxury of having tournaments or leagues where they are able to compete against each other in order to determine who is the best; yet even with doing those events, there is still controversy when people include other aspects that may affect the performance of the athlete when compared against another. It's like comparing the 1927 New York Yankees against the 1998 New York Yankees... which team is better? But, when it comes to punctual year nominations of finding out who is best or most valuable, or had the best performance, there are always several statistics that play in favor of making an educated decision. As far as I can remember, I can't picture a single election of a "Most Valuable Player" or a "Cy Young", that gave the award to the wrong person. The same applies to basketball, football, and other sports. Normally the athlete who has the most impressive stats is the one who wins, because stats reflect dominance over their competitors.

This is why measuring who is the best actor on a lead role is not only difficult, but hard to select on an objetive basis. Personally, to this day I cannot understand how Ellen Burstyn did not win the Oscar for best atress in a leading role in 2001 when she lost to Julia Robert's Erin Brockovich. I have nothing against Julia -I actually think she is a good actress- and the other nominees, but I try to come up with reasons to justify her win and I think that the reason why Ellen did not win was due to insufficient marketing on her character and promotion of the movie for which she was nominated: Requiem for a Dream, which is a very brilliant but dark and controversial film that tells the story of four drug addicts and how their lives become more miserable with the growth of their addiction. Maybe Sarah Goldfarb's character was too dark and depressing for the Academy to handle, but hands down it's one of the greatest -if not the greatest- female acting interpretations I have seen in my life.

Ellen Burstyn should have won not one, but two Oscars for her portrayal of Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream.
Instead, she lost to Julia Robert's one-dimensional character who tells the same story of overcoming obstacles.

I can't get the video to post in the blog but watch this clip 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3OK0KgXjmk

I hope it doesn't get removed...

Furthermore, Requiem for a Dream was Darren Aronofsky's second movie.and I dare anyone to tell me that the directing effort achieved in this film wasn't worth at least an Oscar nomination. I think that because it showed something too creative, too original, something that was fresh and new, the academy passed on it, and didn't appreciate it in its own time. Just last year Darren earn the nomination that had been evading him with all his films, with his gem Black Swan; he lost though to King's Speech's Tom Hooper, which is in my opinion a very conventional movie with nothing new or flamboyant to brag about how great the direction was.

"Yes, and thanks for bringing the beers the
other night. Here's your Nobel Prize"
Perhaps the most controversial
Nobel Prize award of all time.

Well, I guess we can take consolation on the fact sometimes even science makes the mistake of not appreciating genious in their own time too: did you know that Albert Einstein didn't win the Nobel Prize for his General Relativity theory. He was awared the Nobel Prize for one of his least important contributions to physics, because General Relativity was either too complex to understand or not entirely accepted by scientists back then. What were they thinking? It was like:

Nobel Prize Commetee: "Well, you're definitely the greatest genius that has graced our planet since Isaac Newton, and your General Relativity theory allows us to understand how the universe works and how can we use physics to comprehend science, but... it's just TOO GOOD for us. So here, we'll just hand you the Nobel Prize for doing a great job cleaning those letrines in the basement of the building." Crazy.

Of course, I'm just making a bit of fun out of the situation. I can't place the Academy Awards in the same level of the Nobel Prize; to put things in perspective, I don't think there have been many controversial decisions on Nobel Prize winners. But if you think about the Einstein example, who is not to say something similar happens with the Oscars? Maybe the Academy tought something like "Well, it's been seventeen Meryl Streep nominations, I guess we should finally give it to her." Give or take, there are similar examples in the Oscars' past events. Let's name a few of those, along with some where I believe the winner was the right choice:

The man

Stanley Kubrick -one of the greatest directors of all time- won just one oscar, and it was for Best Special Effects for 2001. He was nominated for best director for

• Dr Strangelove (lost to George Cukor for My Fair Lady). Stanley should have won.
• 2001 (lost to Carol Reed  for  Oliver!). Stanley should have won.
• Clockwork orange (lost to William Friedklin  for  The French Connection). Close call. 
• Barry Lyndon (lost to Milos Forman  for  Cuckoo's nest). Milos won fare and square. 

Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) won Best Actor in a Supporting Role over Ralph Fiennes for Schindler's list. I think Tommy is a terrific actor and he nails it as the Fed Marshal. But seriously, over Fiennes?

If there is one year where Akira Kurosawa should have won was in his only nomination in 1986 for Ran. He lost though to Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa.

1976 is a very interesting year as many categories were very close call.

One of only three movies to
sweep the five main
Oscars categories

• Best Director between Kubrick, Robert Altman, Federico Fellini and Sidney Lumet, with Milos Forman winning, fare and square in my opinion.
• Best actress was a very close call between Louise Fletcher for Cuckoo's nest against Isabelle Adjani for Adele H. The real upset for Isabelle is losing in 1990 to Jessica Tandy's Driving Miss Daisy. Unacceptable.
• Best actor between Jack Nicholson for Cuckoo's and Al Pacino for Dog Day Afternoon is one of those where you wish both of them should have won. Despite I agree that Jack runs a show of his own and it was a good win, I believe Pacino's performance in DDA is one of the best five in the history of cinema.
• Best movie between Cuckoo's nest, Barry Lyndon and Dog Day Afternoon, was unfair for any of them to lose.

Robert De Niro is an interesting case too: perhaps the greatest actor of his generation, he has "only" been nominated six times, winning twice for Raging Bull and The Godfather II.

• He lost the nomination for Taxi Driver against Peter Finch. Close call, but I would have gave it to De Niro.
• He lost the nomination for Awakenings against Jeremy Irons. Close call, but in the end it was the right choice. Jeremy is superb in Reversal of Fortune. A must see movie, Claus von Bulow is a fascinating character.
• De Niro wasn't nominated for his performances in Goodfellas, Heat, Once upon a time in America, 1900, .Brazil or Casino. I find this unbelievable, as I like to quote a friend of mine from college: "De Niro is the only man who could earn an Oscar nomination for portraying a McDonalds cashier.

Frank Capra won three Best Director Oscars, but he lost when nominated for It's a Wonderful Life, against The Best Years of Our lives. This was a very close call, as David Lean was nominated too with Brief Encounter.

Laurence Olivier won just one Oscar (for Hamlet) in eleven nominations.

• He lost to James Stewart for The Philadelphia story. Close call but fair enough.
• He lost to Yul Brynner for The king and I. mmmmm
• He lost to Burt Lancaster for Elmer Gantry.
• He lost to Lee Marvin for Cat Ballou.
• He also lost to Marlon Brando's Godfather. Ironcally Brando didn't even accept the award.

Alfred Hitchcock NEVER won an Oscar. He was nominated for Psycho, Rear Window, Spellbound, Lifeboat and Rebecca.

Francis Ford Coppola lost Best Director for The Godfather, to Cabaret. Really?

Chicago won Best Picture in 2003 over Gangs of New York and The Pianist. What's "Chicago" anyway? Does anyone remember what's this movie about?

...and my favorite fact from the Oscars: Tron -the original 1982 film- was not nominated for Special Effects, because the Academy felt that using computers was cheating.

So there you have it.... some examples of crazy facts about the Oscars winners and losers. Which is your favorite one? Do you have one that is not in the list?