Oscar Justice

So last weekend I spent part of the snowy Sunday watching "The Last Emperor". It has been out for over 20 years, and I was amazed at how good it still is to this day. It was a well told story, with an epic quality in its scope, well deserving of its status as "Best Picture" plus the eight other Oscars it won. Sometimes, I had to admit, the Oscars get it right.

Sometimes.

More often they eff it up.

So it starts like it always does, with lunch with SeaBass. I know it will happen, I just don't know when, but sometime in the month of February the Oscar bashing will occur. This year, the topic focused on mistakes.

I have almost given up trying to improve the Oscars. My attempts to improve the Oscars with new categories has failed miserably (check past rants in 2008, 2009 and 2010). So instead of trying to offer positive solutions for improvement, for 2011, I am out to punish past injustices (no more carrot, it is ALL stick). There are certain movies and actors which won, which should not have taken home Oscar glory, while some languished, bravely applauding, while wondering "what?!". So for 2011, I think it is time to right the wrongs, and retroactively awarding the major awards to the movies that should have won, but didn't.

Best Picture:

"Saving Private Ryan" over "Shakespeare in Love", the winner in 1999. "Shakespeare in Love" winning the Oscar was the result of a very clever and effective marketing blitz, that took a very good movie, and convinced everyone it was great. With the benefit of hindsight, "Ryan" is the picture that has stood the test of time, and still has that epic quality you look for in a Best Picture; unlike "Shakespeare" which is just a very clever romantic film. However, the decision to right this wrong was not an easy selection. Also under consideration was "Shawshank Redemption" losing to "Forrest Gump", "Dances with Wolves" beating "Goodfellas", "Gladiator" inexplicably beating a host of other films, and "Titanic" winning in 1997 (Actually, even though it is a completely overrated movie, I don't hate "Titanic" that much. What I really hate most is that "Titanic" is spawned a generation of imitator films, set during a major historical event, which is told through a love story which seeks to impose itself of said event, e.g. "Pearl Harbor". The parent should suffer for the crimes of the child).

Best Director:

Easy. Rob Marshall for "Chicago" over Roman "the Rapist" Polanski for "The Pianist". "Chicago" was nominated for 13 Oscars and won six. It won two parts of the triple crown, that every best picture should win: Best Picture, Best Editing... but no best director. That honor went to Polanski. To put it simply, best pictures don't direct themselves. Did the Academy really think that a movie could win so many awards and receive so many nominations by, what, luck? It takes a skilled director to do it all, and Marshall got the shaft.

Now, granted, Roman Polanski winning the award did lead to possibly the most unintentionally funny moment in all of Oscar History when his name was announced as the winner. The audience was looking around for him in the theater, until the PA announcer chimed in and informed everyone that "Mr. Polanski is not in attendance tonight because he will be arrested and incarcerated the moment he steps on US soil for drugging, rapping and sodomizing a minor." Okay - I made part of that up, but he is still a pervert.

Best Actor

Mickey Rorke in "The Wrestler" over Sean Penn for "Milk" in 2008. This one is almost too recent to qualify, but the politics behind this one were too strong to be ignored. The debate on gay marriage obviously had an influence on voters minds; a vote against Penn was a vote against homosexual rights. It is a shame this debate in the political world had an unfortunate and unintentional effect on Rorke's performance, one of the best of his career and possibly the best male acting performance in the 2000s.

This correction narrowly beat out one of the greatest injustices, in 1992 when Jack Lemmon did not even get nominated for "Glengarry Glen Ross." That year the award went to Al Pachino for "Scent of a Woman". Seriously. Also losing out in the retribution awards was Paul Newman getting denied for "The Hustler", "Hud", "Cool Hand Luke", "Absence of Malice", and "The Verdict". Shameful.

Best Actress

Cher for "Moonstruck" in 1988. I don't really care who wins in her place. I just hate Cher. Pick anyone in the last 20 years and I'll be happy. Give it to Meryl Streep for one of the 12 times she deserved to win, but didn't, and that's fine with me.

Best Supporting Actor:

Supporting actors and actresses are tough calls; a small part can have a huge impact, even if the acting wasn't that great. Actors sometime win just because it was a fun role. The one injustice that has bothered me is in 1991: Jack Palance winning for "City Slickers" over Gary Oldman who was not nominated for his performance as Lee Harvey Oswald in "JFK". To put it simply, Oldman did a better job of playing Oswald than Oswald ever did playing himself. Its hard to take away an award from an old guy who does one armed push ups in his acceptance speech, but look back at JFK, and Oldman is what made that movie great (so long as you don't believe everything in the movie is true).

Best Supporting Actress:

Judi Dench in "Shakespeare in Love". One of Oscar's many problems is there is no guidelines for how big a part you need to qualify for Best Actor/Actress or for Best Supporting Actor/Actress. Daniel Day-Lewis suffered this misfortune in 2002 when his brilliant performance, but in a secondary role in "Gangs of New York". His part was too small to compete with Best Actors, which he lost; had he been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, he probably would have won. Judi Dench though had no such problem. Apparently, she packed enough in her eight minutes of "Shakespeare in Love" to win the award. Bullocks, I say, bullocks. Her winning for "Shakespeare in Love" was an insult to the other deserving actresses, but an even bigger insult to Ms. Dench's impressive body of work. A more deserving winner: Lynn Redgrave for "Gods and Monsters".

We these small corrections, the Academy Awards could take a big step to writing past wrongs. I only hope they don't make new ones this weekend.

Happy watching!