March 27th, 1995- Oscar Night
“Showtime,” Leno whispered to no one in particular as he made a final adjustment to his bowtie. He braced himself as the curtains started to rise, and the somewhat unusually deep female voice announced his arrival.
“Ladies and Gentleman, your host for the 67th Annual Academy Awards, JAY LENO!”
To the roaring applause of thousands of attendees,
The Tonight Show host made his way onto the stage of the Shriner Auditorium. All of the Hollywood stars were in the house tonight, and Leno was determined to make this the most memorable Oscars Night to date.
“Thank you, thank you! Boy, what a crowd!”, Leno began as the applause died down. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy, all the billions of people watching this around the globe, welcome to the 67th Annual Oscars ceremony! Guess this isn’t the right venue for the Aristocrats joke, huh?”
And everything went downhill from there.
…
Notable Oscar Wins
-Best Documentary Feature
It was a tough decision in the minds of many about who should win the award.
Backlash would be the logically timely choice [1]. It discussed the return of race baiting as a political tactic in the early 1990’s in the wake of rioting and affirmative action, prominently featuring David Duke, Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Jr., Jesse Helms, and other Southern politicians, as well as the 1988 presidential campaign of George Bush (including the infamous “Willie Horton” ad). The lawsuit Wallace and Helms filed against the producers for being presented in the same vein as Duke and Maddox only served to raise the film’s profile, increasing its chances. Of course, the more well-acclaimed
Hoop Dreams, sharing the aspirations of several inner-city African-American high students hoping to become basketball players, also looked like it had a serious chance of taking home the hardware.
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, about the titular artist, and
That Wacky Redhead [2], a lighthearted look at the life of actress/producer Lucille Ball, were both considered fine films but lacked the media machines the other three documentaries had surrounding them.
In spite of the competition, no one was really angry when
Crumb won. Terry Zwigoff’s masterful look into the story of underground comic artist R. Crumb was a work of art in-and-of itself, and it had the backing of powerful producers David Lynch and Lynch O’Donnell to boot. However, what pushed it over the top was probably the success
Watchmen and
The Crow had enjoyed the previous year had increased mainstream attention for non-mainstream comics (“Stuff without guys and gals in spandex”, Zwigoff himself would assert), and Crumb’s art was anything but mainstream. The consensus was that this was very much a well-deserved award.
-Best Visual Effects
No contest. Though
Stargate impressed some with what it could do with a relatively small budget, and the ability of the SFX team on
Forrest Gump to seamlessly incorporate Gump into historical archive footage could not compete with
Watchmen. When the ILM wizards had created Doctor Manhattan, they created the first completely computer generated main character in a motion picture, showing just what this new form of special effects could accomplish, and illuminating the shape of things to come.
-Best Original Screenplay
A win for
Pulp Fiction writers Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary (who were also up as a duo for
Natural Born Killers in that same category).
-Best Costume Design
I’m sorry, but did you think the superhero movie with the most fancy spandex ever wouldn’t win? Silly you.
A win for
Watchmen and head costume designer Marlene Stewart.
-Best Supporting Actor
This category had won a great deal of media speculation beforehand. Breaking the tradition of having an actor/actress of the opposite sex present the award for an acting category, Harrison Ford was selected to present this one. As Mark Hamill, his
Star Wars co-star was up for the award, this was considered a strong indication that Hamill was going to win it. However, this ended up not being the case. Samuel L. Jackson won the award for his portrayal of Jules in
Pulp Fiction (and endured the ensuing controversy when he used the “F-word” multiple times in his acceptance speech).
-Best Supporting Actress
Helen Mirren wins for
The Madness of King George.
-Best Actor
Nigel Hawthorne wins for the title role in
The Madness of King George.
-Best Actress
Jessica Lange wins for
Blue Sky.
-Best Director
In a completely unsurprising occurrence, Quentin Tarantino, who had been nominated for both
Pulp Fiction and
Natural Born Killers, wins for the former.
-Best Picture
The big kahuna.
Overture, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, and
The Shawshank Redemption were all up. However, the early front runner,
Forrest Gump, was suffering. The extremely negative “For Your Consideration” campaign between that film and
Watchmen before the awards season had really hurt
Forrest Gump, and it had been greatly weakened as a result. Many Academy voters who had been disappointed at the lack of a
Watchmen nomination in this category thus voted for it in the lesser categories, and Watchmen practically swept the technical awards. And because of the bad blood, being for
Watchmen meant being against
Forrest Gump, which ended up not winning a single award.
Pulp Fiction, on the other hand, really was the natural pick. If James Cameron had enjoyed “The Summer of
Watchmen”, well, it couldn’t hold up to “The Year of Tarantino”. The directors two successful films had made him very popular, and even then his style was being hailed as innovative.
And lo, producer Lawrence Bender won for Pulp Fiction.
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[1] Based on a more minor documentary that came out in 1992, here it was expanded in scope.
[2]
...
Yeah, I skipped the Tarantino update, might come back to it later.
Thoughts?
