From 1990-1994, though, it's a weird spot because these are not "classics" that I had to seek out or have no memory of watching in real-time, but were really when movies were still just a "normal" thing for me, not something I was obsessed with and made my entire personality. In 1990, I definitely watched at least two movies (The Rescuers Down Under and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) in theaters, and so I have at least some context for this year in real-time, even if the bulk of these movies are me watching them later at home. By 1995, Oscar-related films like Apollo 13 & Babe I'd seen in movie theaters, and had known they were going to be Oscar nominees beforehand, and so the early 1990's feel like a weird time of catchup for me as a teenager, a feeling that has stretched well into adulthood.
I give you this preamble in part because this is a personal journey of Oscar exploration, and in part because I think it's good context. The early 1990's are a time where I see some of these movies from a child's eyes (I remember my parents' VHS copies of films like Ghost & Pretty Woman, and secretly watching them when I was too young to understand what they were wholly about), and revisiting them as an adult has shifted some of my perspective on them, but in other ways they are immobile. As always, to ground you in the films of the year, the domestic Top 10 at the box office in 1990 was:
1. Home Alone
2. Ghost
3. Dances with Wolves
4. Pretty Woman
5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
6. The Hunt for Red October
7. Total Recall
8. Die Hard 2
9. Dick Tracy
10. Kindergarten Cop
I have actually seen all of these movies, and to underline my point about growing up with them, I had seen 70% (save for #7-9) by the time I turned 16. Honestly, you have to go Another 48 Hours at #14 on the domestic box office list to find a movie I haven't caught from the top box office that year. While I have seen all of the Oscar nominees below, there are a couple of precursor contenders that I haven't seen yet, namely The Russia House, White Palace, and Q&A that I haven't caught yet, but plan on doing so before we get to the My Ballot.
But now, it's time to go back to a time when Nelson Mandela was being freed in front of the world, the Hubble telescope was having us reach for the stars, Roseanne Barr was teaching us new ways to never sing on national television, and the entire nation was mourning the loss of Jim Henson. And of course, let's remember the movies...
Note: For the last time (likely ever) the Visual Effects category was not a competitive category, but instead was given to Total Recall as a special prize. We'll have a proper category for this when we get to it for the My Ballot with five nominees, and it's worth noting that it's relatively accepted that Dick Tracy, Ghost, and Back to the Future, Part III were shortlisted for this but none of them got nominated (all of which I've seen as well), but I want to note that Total Recall was seen by me for this project, and I generally was impressed with the visual effects, particularly the way that they used makeup effects toward the end of the picture.
1. GoodFellas
2. Ghost
3. The Godfather, Part III
4. Dances with Wolves
5. Awakenings
The Lowdown: Let's begin with me saying that 1990 is, collectively, one of the first years I ever saw all five of the Best Picture nominees (I've had this lineup completed since before I graduated high school, which was a while ago), and also a year where (both for Oscar and in general) I don't love the movies themselves as much as others. The glossy movie star-driven blockbusters that would become the decade's calling card hadn't started yet, and we don't have some of the best prestige work that I enjoyed in the 1980's. Of these films, it's an easy call for GoodFellas, one of the best films of Martin Scorsese's career. Ghost ages better with reappraisal, and Godfather 3 is not as bad as its critical reputation allows, but GoodFellas is an easy champion.
1. Martin Scorsese (GoodFellas)
2. Stephen Frears (The Grifters)
3. Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Part III)
4. Barbet Schroder (Reversal of Fortune)
5. Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves)
The Lowdown: It's weird to think about now, but at one point in time Martin Scorsese was basically the Hitchcock or Kubrick of his era-a man who was constantly nominated for Academy Awards but never was able to win any of them. Meanwhile, I'm giving him his third statue for the OVP (again, links below) for the really incredible way that he upended the gangster flick after decades of hero-worship of it through the Godfather pictures (which of course in this case he competed alongside). I will also acknowledge I have some respect for Dances with Wolves, but you're going to find out they do not extend to Kevin Costner's involvement in the film (and this ain't its final 5th place finish).
1. Richard Harris (The Field)
2. Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune)
3. Gerard Depardieu (Cyrano de Bergerac)
4. Robert de Niro (Awakenings)
5. Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves)'
The Lowdown: A very odd lineup, and not a strong one (this isn't Oscar's fault...my My Ballot for 1990 is going to be very weird unless I start discovering some stronger stuff in the upcoming viewings...this is much more a year for actresses). Oscar went with Jeremy Irons, and honestly this wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened for the OVP-Irons is a really good actor, one who somehow only got one Oscar nomination despite being in the AMPAS wheelhouse (British, handsome, classy, constantly in prestige fare), but I'm going to go with Harris over him. Harris's part is a bit more theatrical, but it also has a stronger build, and he's also batting in a lesser movie while still excelling. The rest, even Robert de Niro, don't really need mention.
1. Anjelica Huston (The Grifters)
2. Kathy Bates (Misery)
3. Meryl Streep (Postcards from the Edge)
4. Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman)
5. Joanne Woodward (Mr. and Mrs. Bridge)
The Lowdown: While I will own that I'm not inspired by 1990 as a whole, that doesn't mean that I don't have moments, and this is one of the best Best Actress lineups Oscar ever pulled together. Any of these women would be a winner, and I wouldn't be stunned if my My Ballot looks a lot like this-even Woodward in fifth place is doing a lot of strong work. I ended up going with Huston over Bates (a controversial choice, I know) not because Bates isn't splendid (one of the best Oscar upsets), but because Huston nails this part so well that I have long been obsessed with it. The interiority in her work, the way that she nails the animal instinct of that final scene...she's honestly never been better. I'm aware this means that Bates may never get an OVP statue from me, but...that's why we decide this in a vacuum, and I prefer Huston in a vacuum.
1. Joe Pesci (GoodFellas)
2. Andy Garcia (The Godfather, Part III)
3. Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion)
4. Al Pacino (Dick Tracy)
5. Grahame Greene (Dances with Wolves)
The Lowdown: Joe Pesci is one of those truly spectacular actors who rarely works...but when he does, it always felt like an event. In 1990 you've got him not just nailing the fiery persona behind GoodFellas but also playing the funniest henchmen outside of a DC Comic in Home Alone. Davison is subtler than I would've expected given the subject matter (his final scene is the best in the movie) and I actually think Andy Garcia brings a hot-headed style to Godfather III (and no, this is not just because I palpitated every time he was onscreen...Andy Garcia in Godfather III was a formative experience for a teenage John watching this on VHS for the first time), but they just aren't in the same hemisphere as what Pesci brings to his doomed mob hitman.
1. Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost)
2. Annette Bening (The Grifters)
3. Lorraine Bracco (GoodFellas)
4. Diane Ladd (Wild at Heart)
5. Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves)
The Lowdown: While I didn't go with the consensus choice for Best Actress, that won't be the case here. Whoopi Goldberg owns Ghost, giving us a lesson in comedy, and totally nailing the frequently cliched role of "best friend to the leading lovers" that has long been the bread-and-butter of the romantic genre. I do really like Annette Bening, particularly the glossy over-her-head feeling she gets the further The Grifters goes (without ever totally telegraphing it), and Lorraine Bracco has strong moments even if she's pitched a little to the hilt in some scenes of GoodFellas, but like Oscar said-this is Whoopi's year.
1. Cyrano de Bergerac (France)
2. The Nasty Girl (Germany)
3. Ju Dou (China)
4. Journey of Hope (Switzerland)
5. Open Doors (Italy)
The Lowdown: For me, this is a pretty tight contest between France & Germany. I liked elements of Ju Dou, but honestly Raise the Red Lantern a year later leaves a much longer shadow. Cyrano is more conventional, a space we've gone to before, but this is also my favorite adaptation of Rostand's story, and it doesn't have the not-always-successful narrator tricks of The Nasty Girl, even if the latter has a more compelling story (and honestly, a better lead performance).
1. GoodFellas
2. The Grifters
3. Reversal of Fortune
4. Dances with Wolves
5. Awakenings
The Lowdown: Adapted Screenplay goes to the crooks, and the two films I pretty much universally love of this bunch: GoodFellas and The Grifters. There's something wonderful about The Grifters, a movie I find I champion more than most do, as it strips down some of the best elements of the neo-noir (the sex, the deceit, the ability to have a non-Hays Code ending) and creates something that feels fresh and calculating, but I can't deny GoodFellas in the end, the extremely rare screenplay so well-written it even makes the narration work.
1. Ghost
2. Metropolitan
3. Avalon
4. Alice
5. Green Card
The Lowdown: A pretty middling field, even if none are objectively bad. I'm picking Ghost not just because it's the best, but also because it takes a really challenging genre to make without it turning camp or cloying (the romantic drama-fantasy) and really makes it sell (it's also genuinely funny). Metropolitan is the most sophisticated (I was stunned to find out it's not based on a play or novel), and part of me wants to go with it but I think its ending doesn't work at all, and neither Avalon nor a weak default nomination for Woody Allen really compare to the Unchained Melody of Ghost.
1. Dances with Wolves
2. Total Recall
3. Days of Thunder
4. The Hunt for Red October
5. Dick Tracy
The Lowdown: We're shifting into the Oscar era for Best Sound where we are very much valuing the big, action-film even over the prestige fare of the giant epic (Dances with Wolves is the only epic in this bunch, and it's not without its battle scenes). I actually really like what the team does with Dances with Wolves, between the Civil War beginnings to the way that it adds elements of "the last western" realism to the scenes with Costner off finding himself, all while beautifully bringing in that lush John Barry score. Total Recall and its futuristic & impressive battles would also have been a good idea, but I think I'm ready to give a statue to Oscar's Best Picture winner here.
1. The Hunt for Red October
2. Total Recall
3. Flatliners
The Lowdown: It's a running joke with Oscar that he tends to, when it was a separate category, always think first of submarine movies when it comes to Sound Effects Editing (look at the history of the category-it pops up way more than you'd think), and to some degree I agree with him. The water effects, constant claustrophobia, & many buttons & levers of The Hunt for Red October are really done and a large part of what builds the suspense, even if the space age adventures, and especially some of the final scenes in the dying planet of Mars in Total Recall hold their own.
1. Dances with Wolves
2. Home Alone
3. Avalon
4. Ghost
5. Havana
The Lowdown: I feel like a lot of these OVP Score contests from the 1970's through the 2020's is a battle of "to John Williams or not to John Williams" and this is a particularly tough one as I adore the score to Home Alone (and honestly Avalon or Ghost would be a good winner here too...there's only one true dud in this lineup). But John Barry's score to Dances with Wolves is just a perfect piece of music, and adds the best parts to a movie I really did not care for overall. It deserves the W.
1. "I'm Checking Out" (Postcards from the Edge)
2. "Somewhere in My Memory" (Home Alone)
3. "Sooner or Later" (Dick Tracy)
4. "Blaze of Glory" (Young Guns II)
5. "Promise Me You'll Remember" (The Godfather, Part III)
The Lowdown: You know that line that I said above about how movies have connections to your childhood you can't really escape. For me, one of the few true memories of childhood, specifically around Christmas, that I need to bring back every year is hearing "Somewhere in My Memory" playing in the background. It's also a movie that reminds me, more than maybe any other, of my little brother as I know how much he loves Home Alone, which gives it a nostalgic necessity I really cherish. I'm judging on a scale (and honestly all of these movies are good), and for me "I'm Checking Out" is better (and better-used in the film) so I'm giving it the trophy, but it's tight and you should expect both to end up in the My Ballot.
1. Dick Tracy
2. Hamlet
3. The Godfather, Part III
4. Cyrano de Bergerac
5. Dances with Wolves
The Lowdown: Honestly, a really solid lineup (there are no losers in this bunch, even if I won't repeat all of them with my My Ballot). I tend to like the Mel Gibson Hamlet more than most (for the record, people turned on this one well before they turned on Gibson), and I think the castles & work here is really beautiful. But Dick Tracy is so inventive, it's impossible to deny-the comic book lights, the way that it feels at once like it's springing from a dime novel AND a 1940's Hollywood set, despite relatively modern makeup & visual effects surrounding it-and all that color! Glorious!
1. Dances with Wolves
2. The Godfather, Part III
3. Avalon
4. Dick Tracy
5. Henry & June
The Lowdown: Leave it to those crazy pervs in the Cinematography branch to totally go for a film as banal as Henry & June just because they tastefully shot most of the sex scenes so well. That random silliness aside, this is really a battle between the increasingly aged & sepia-hued glories of The Godfather, Part III and the gorgeous expanses of Dances with Wolves (points are due for the way that Avalon feels of another time though). I would not be opposed to giving it to the third Godfather film (and lord knows Gordon Willis deserved a competitive Oscar at some point), but it's hard to argue with the glories of the West.
1. Hamlet
2. Cyrano de Bergerac
3. Dick Tracy
4. Avalon
5. Dances with Wolves
The Lowdown: Hamlet has been cited three times (to date) for Best Costume Design, and like 1948 (see link below), we are giving it the gold medal here (1996's version with Kenneth Branagh is still unseen, but don't worry...we'll get there eventually-every one of these contests I do I become more & more determined to truly finish this project...also fun fact within a fun fact-I have been to Elsinore in my world travels, and thought it was breathtaking). For me, the biggest competition is the period costuming in Cyrano. I think some of the comic book costuming in Dick Tracy is a bit silly, and Avalon doesn't stand out, but the gorgeous 17th Century decorations of France were on-par with 14th Century Denmark, but not quite enough to conquer to the monologuing Dane.
1. GoodFellas
2. The Godfather, Part III
3. Dances with Wolves
4. Ghost
5. The Hunt for Red October
The Lowdown: I feel at this point like a broken record-GoodFellas was the best, and somewhere behind it is Godfather III and Ghost. I will own, given its really rough reputation as a movie, that Godfather III being in second here is no accident. I think a lot of the problems with it are casting (Sofia Coppola, apologies, but you are the weakest link...and George Hamilton is not a strong substitute for Robert Duvall), but the editing works-we get a really strongly-structured story, one that feels inline with the originals even if it isn't that level of classic (like, say, GoodFellas, which basically invented a new type of editing with its cocaine-inspired manic nature).
1. Dick Tracy
2. Edward Scissorhands
3. Cyrano de Bergerac
The Lowdown: It feels weird to end in Makeup, not Visual Effects (I believe this is the only time we'll do this as we're alphabetical and Makeup has been a category for a much shorter time than Visual Effects), but I'm glad we're doing it with two icons of the category. There are only winners between the garish brilliance of Dick Tracy and the transformative genius of Edward Scissorhands (honestly, Cyrano ain't bad either), but I'm going with Dick Tracy both because there's more characters to be in awe of and because it feels so in-tune with the glorious silliness of a comic strip, rather than needing to take itself too seriously.
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