In Contention

Tag: The Royal Tenenbaums

  • The new millennium Oscars?

    Viggo Mortensen in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the KingLooking back over the previous Oscar winners for Best Picture since 2000, the start of a new century (and a new millennium), I find myself wondering sometimes what the hell the Academy was thinking.  It’s no secret I disagree with the Academy a lot, but I can also admit that when they get it right, they get it right.

    But since 2000, their Best Pic choices have run the gamut from incredibly ridiculous, “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” being just goofy, to bang on, with “The Departed” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”  I am told the Academy is moving in a more progressive direction, willing to take more risks, and I suppose some of these winners do just that.  But they could have gone further.

    Year by year, here’s a quick look, with some thoughts about who might have won, and who should have at least been nominated…

    (more…)

  • Best actor contenders join an eclectic list of recent winners

    Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Frank Langella seem to be the names bandied about for Oscar consideration this year, which would place them in some impressive company of nominees and winners these last 20 years. Of course, that said, there have also been some bizarre choices for the Best Actor award, which has often left me shaking my head in disgust and wondering what these voters were actually seeing.

    Since 1988, there have been 10 winners that perhaps should not have been, the award arguably deserved by another of the nominees, or worse, an actor not nominated! Consider Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man,” a widely acclaimed performance that asked that he not connect with anyone in the film, never make eye contact, rock back and forth and speak in a nasally voice.

    Stop what you are doing right now and try what he did in the film, and trust me it is very easy to do. Now do you deserve an Oscar for doing what Hoffman did in that film? The real perfortmance in “Rain Man” was that of Tom Cruise, who we watched evolve over the course of the film, and of course the best performance of that year was Gene Hackman as the tough investigator in “Mississippi Burning.” Hackman was nominated, but he stood no chance in the wake of the juggernaut of support for Hoffman, who in fact should have won years before for his miraculous work in “Tootsie!”

    (more…)