After doing the Oscar Viewing Project (our 34th!) a few weeks ago for 1990, we are already tracking to have our latest round of the My Ballot (again, our 34th). For those that are new here (links to all past contests at the bottom of this article), I have two waves to the Oscar Viewing Project. In the first, I take a peak at all of the Oscar-nominated films in every single full-length, Oscar-nominated category, and pick who I would want. In the second, I pick my own nominees, watching not just the films of Oscar, but other notable films from the year (whether they be precursor-laden, box office hits, critical darlings, or just movies that looked interesting to me). Both of these are done in a vacuum, meaning I am picking this solely based on my thoughts, not taking into account whether I've already honored someone, whether or not someone I like is giving a career-best performance (but still is in sixth place), or the personal/political views of the nominee.
As we close 1990, I'll own (and I don't mean this an overall slight on the honors I'm about to give out) that this is one of the weakest years we've seen so far (2020 is always going to be the worst given what cinema had to go through that year, but this is in the Bottom 5). I don't entirely know why. It's not that my own personal genres aren't being honored; I tend to like westerns, film noir, and romantic epics, and all of these are oddly present for 1990 when not all of these were super in-fashion. I think it might be a bit of a transition year, from the action-adventure and giant epics of the 1980's that were my favorite part of that decade to the blockbuster-laden romances, animated classics, & gigantic movie star-fronted effects films of the 1990's. This year just doesn't have a lot of that oomph, and as a result you're seeing some fields (like Best Actor, and to a lesser degree Best Picture and the screenplay categories) that would not stand up to some of their neighbors as we went forward in the 1990's. But as you'll see, we still have time for some big moments here, and the Best Picture winner is to die for good; it's also a way to guarantee that a film director who only won statues for Oscar in a year I already cover gets a statue...this might be in a vacuum, but there is a sigh of relief when big names are not going to end up being my "Glenn Close" or "Stanley Kubrick."
Note About Eligibility: First off, I'll start with my caveat that I did not see every film from 1990. I saw every Oscar-nominated, narrative feature, but it would be impossible (and not worth my time) to see every film from the year...hell, I didn't even see all of the films that looked interesting. I focused instead on movies of significance, movies that trusted sources recommended, and movies that I figured would be a threat for a nomination. If you have a film that you think should've made it that you don't see at all (and wasn't nominated for an Oscar), sound off in the comments & I'll give my rational (or excuse for not seeing it). I would also like to note that a few films (specifically Sweetie, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down, Life and Nothing But, and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover) were deemed to be 1989 films, not 1990, and so they are not eligible here but will be when we (eventually) get to 1989. That won't be for a while, though we will head to the 1980's with our next contest, specifically 1985. And now-the nominees!
Cyrano de Bergerac
Edward Scissorhands
GoodFellas
The Grifters
Mermaids
Misery
Mr. and Mrs. Bridge
Paris is Burning
Postcards from the Edge
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Gold: Leading off our list today will be the film we picked as Best Picture for the OVP, so Oscar got close for me, Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas. Given we recently finished 1972 for this series, it feels appropriate that we have bookends for those two with the films that have long-defined the gangster flick, and prove that you can support both films as amongst the best of all-time.
Silver: Next up is a close race between two different types of films, and I'm going with the one a bit more steeped in Hollywood lore. The way that Mike Nichols fizzes the complicated relationship between mother and daughter in Postcards from the Edge is so moving. Yes, they're playing fictionalized versions of Debbie Reynolds & Carrie Fisher, but they're also playing every parent-child who struggles with what happens once both are fully-entrenched in adulthood.
Bronze: Occasionally it's good to remind you that these are my choices. Sometimes that means that I'm sitting here defending a guilty pleasure (check out the 2008 Best Picture lineup below for the best example of this), and sometimes I'm defending a critically well-reviewed film that has fallen on some disrepair in the decades that followed. That's the case with The Grifters, which I think is a splendid, dark neo-noir about a family of conmen, one with one of my favorite film endings, which was Oscar-celebrated in 1990 but most people don't count it as their favorites in retrospect.
Tim Burton, Edward Scissorhands
Stephen Frears, The Grifters
Mike Nichols, Postcards from the Edge
Rob Reiner, Misery
Martin Scorsese, GoodFellas
Gold: We are duplicating the gold medals here with Scorsese taking another. Really, it's hard to find another contender in 1990 that even comes close. The much ballyhooed scene through the nightclub is one thing, but the entire film has a kinetic energy, where it's leading to somewhere. We know this doesn't end well, and we know that we're subverting a genre that goes all the way back to the 1930's...even with all of the copycats since, it still crackles.
Silver: I'm swapping the remaining two, though, with Frears coming into second place. I generally like but do not love his movies, finding that they say something interesting, but don't know how to stick the landing. That's just not the case with The Grifters, though, where we have a (mildly) miscast John Cusack being our only fault, but the way the camera catches the different lights of Los Angeles (I love how much of the seedy nature of this happens in daytime) truly feels like it's at the heart of film noir.
Bronze: The phrase "actor's director" sometimes means they don't get the love that they should here, but Mike Nichols thankfully got his laurels in life (unfortunately that wasn't the case for Rob Reiner, who was also an actor's director I'm thrilled we're able to include in a directorial lineup, something Oscar never managed to achieve). I love the softness of his approach here, sometimes with great humor (that bit with Meryl hanging off the building always gets me), but that we're being welcomed into this family.
Macauley Culkin, Home Alone
Danny Glover, To Sleep with Anger
Richard Harris, The Field
Ray Liotta, GoodFellas
Al Pacino, The Godfather, Part III
Gold: This is maybe one of the weirdest choices I've made in this series, but I did a rewatch for a reason, and I'm going to pick Al Pacino (getting his first statue two years chronologically earlier than his only one with Oscar). I love the choices he makes to make Michael angrier, more volatile, his impending old age & obsolescence creeping into the performance as he tries to stake his claim in the same way Brando did in the first film. As I said in the OVP article, I am in the middle on Godfather III, but I love Pacino in this (worth noting he now has a Silver and Gold for the series...we'll do 1974 next year so you won't have to wait too long to know his final medal count for the trilogy).
Silver: With me selecting Pacino (again, one of the weirdest Best Actor selections I've made), we'll pick another star of a Best Picture nominee with AMPAS that didn't make their lineup otherwise, Ray Liotta. I love the sexy danger that he brings here. He's charming, he is able to find himself in the early scenes, and yet as the film progresses we both never lose sight of that in-awe kid, and we also understand what happens when you don't truly mature when you grow up.
Bronze: Speaking of kids, we're concluding with one of the best child comedy performances I've ever seen, one that would become a holiday classic for a reason. Macauley Culkin (joining both his brothers Kieran and Rory as nominees for this series...see 2022 and 2000 below for the other citations) is impish, selling this scalawag of a little boy, and all the physical comedy that ensues, with aplomb.
Kathy Bates, Misery
Anjelica Huston, The Grifters
Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman
Juliet Stevenson, Truly, Madly, Deeply
Meryl Streep, Postcards from the Edge
Gold: I said this when we did the Oscar lineup, but the Academy's choices here were sensational, and honestly Joanne Woodward (the only Oscar nominee we missed) was in sixth place for me. I'm going to repeat myself then a bit by going with Anjelica Huston in a very slim lead over Kathy Bates. I think Huston's interiority, the sophisticated way that she plays someone who is always thinking but never sharing, is one of the best femme fatales in film history, and she nails that dynamite ending.
Silver: It's a good reminder (probably not the last of this article), that I choose these in a vacuum, as Bates missing for her Annie Wilkes may well mean I never give her a first place finish in this project. But that's just proof that the nomination is the true reward (which it is if you do this right), and oh how grand she is as the woman who crafted stan culture FAR before that term became a thing.
Bronze: We'll finish with another Oscar nominee, and this time Oscar's favorite lady, Dame Meryl. I think the added bonus of her being able to truly sing is a highlight, but it's not the only one here as she seems to have genuine fun with Shirley MacLaine (what a treat to get to see her act opposite another woman after a decade of playing romantic leads).
Robert de Niro, GoodFellas
Joe Pesci, GoodFellas
Joe Pesci, Home Alone
Harry Dean Stanton, Wild at Heart
John Turturro, Miller's Crossing
Gold: I'm going with Joe Pesci for the gold, but which performance? While I think his wet bandit in Home Alone is a comic delight, it's his "don't call him funny" hoodlum in GoodFellas that is not just the winner, but the best performance in a career of an actor who rarely worked, but when he did it always felt like an event.
Silver: I am a fervent fighter of category fraud, and part of the reason for that is you get grand character actors like John Turturro (and, it's worth noting, Harry Dean Stanton just missing the medal table here) who make certain movies so much better. The way that his Bernie is both pathetic and a traitorous, debauched weasel is something to behold. I don't know that I've seen a queer character played quite like this in a crime film before.
Bronze: That said, I'm willing to nominate movie stars in this category when they are actually supporting, and that's the case for Robert de Niro's James Conway. De Niro may be above the title, but he's more a background figure making everything click, the one constant that you can measure the mistakes made by Henry & Tommy against.
Annette Bening, The Grifters
Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost
Shirley MacLaine, Postcards from the Edge
Virginia Madsen, The Hot Spot
Catherine O'Hara, Home Alone
Gold: Pacino & Huston are actors who when I started this project, I was curious if I might end up skipping them from the gold medal list when all is said and done as they did their best work in years that others did their best work (they're now covered-whew!). For our final acting gold medal, we'll have the woman who was at the top of that list: Shirley MacLaine. MacLaine is, collectively, my favorite actress of all-time, and so not giving her a statue felt blasphemous, but she's got stiff competition in her best years. Still, you cannot deny the comic gold that is happening in this movie (inexplicably she was skipped by AMPAS), especially her "I'm Here" number.
Silver: Speaking of comic gold, very close behind her is Whoopi Goldberg giving us the definition of a movie star turn in Ghost. Everything about her in the (better-than-I-remembered) fantasy romance is delightful-she aces her Oda Mae, and steals every scene so that you care about her just as much as the parted lovers. The scene where she first encounters Swayze is my favorite.
Bronze: We're ending our acting medalists with the best "watch a bunch of movies from the year, see what sticks" performance of the 1990 lot with Virginia Madsen's nasty, hardened femme fatale in Dennis Hopper's demented (even for Hopper) The Hot Spot. Madsen aces the ending, and makes an icicle-veined harlot that even Phyllis Dietrichson would've avoided.
An Angel at My Table
GoodFellas
The Grifters
Mermaids
Postcards from My Table
Gold: Nicholas Pileggi's GoodFellas is a brilliant writerly work in a film oftentimes thought of as a director's achievement. It unfolds through (surprisingly well-used) narration, and gives us one man caught up in a world designed to drown him. It's super effective, and ends in a way that feels true-to-life (which of course it is), while still being properly cinematic.
Silver: That said, the best ending of a 1990 movie isn't in GoodFellas, it's in the sunny streets of The Grifters. Critics of the film have noted that, it well, contains very little grifting (or maybe that's just Abed Nadir), but what it does do is show a range of raw emotion, and more pertinently, the way that raw instinct will ensure we survive even when we are backed into a corner.
Bronze: Well, I guess Picture/Director/Adapted Screenplay will all contain the same three films, as I'm not leaving Postcards from the Edge behind (which means that, unlike Oscar, I will have nominated Carrie Fisher in this project). The humor, the humanity, the insider Hollywood secrets, they all come together to really craft a beautiful story that feels both relatable and dishy.
Edward Scissorhands
Ghost
Miller's Crossing
Pump Up the Volume
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Gold: With all of the Best Picture medalists highlighted in adapted, we have the opportunity to welcome some new blood, and our Original Screenplay medalist will be Best Picture nominee Edward Scissorhands. Caroline Thompson's great trick here is giving us something that feels weird but grounded, which is true of the best of director Tim Burton's work-it starts at the heart, even if it also chills on the way up.
Silver: This means Oscar's winner get the Silver, but Ghost isn't far behind here (a lot of supernatural love in this group). The best parts of Ghost are honestly way that it feels so romantic from the beginning-this is many things at once (a love story, a thriller, a comedy, a ghost story), but it all stems from the romance of love, wherever it may come.
Bronze: The weirdly similar Truly Madly Deeply takes its approach less from romance, and more from a place of grief, and the way that moving on when someone dies feels impossible (and something like a betrayal), but honestly is the only way you can truly keep living (and is properly honest about how some people sometimes don't want to move on after). I picked Ghost because it's more quotable, but they're both really close.
Back to the Future Part III
Dances with Wolves
Days of Thunder
GoodFellas
Total Recall
Gold: GoodFellas basically changed the game when it came to soundtrack work in a movie. The film, features period-appropriate songs from musical luminaries like Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, & Eric Clapton alongside guns, cars, and death scenes to give us something that feels authentically of its time, and yet totally singular.
Silver: That said, it's a close call between GoodFellas and Dances with Wolves (one of only two times on this list that Oscar's top films of 1990 will face off, and not to spoil it too much, but they swap the gold/silvers in both to end up with a draw). I love the way that the film not just uses John Barry's luminous score, but also the way it uses the expanse of a long-lost west for battles and pioneering.
Bronze: Oscar was just starting to get into action flicks in 1990 for this category (before that it was more likely to feature prestige or just default to Best Picture), and so we're both supporting Total Recall, a movie that leans in hard with Jerry Goldsmith's electrical score and plays it alongside a futuristic (eventual) hellscape of a world to get you totally embedded into the picture.
Back to the Future Part III
Days of Thunder
GoodFellas
The Hunt for the Red October
Total Recall
Gold: Proving that my Al Pacino win isn't my sole "totally out of left field" 1990 gold medal, I am going to go with the third installment from the Back to the Future franchise for the Sound Editing victor. The big thing (for me) driving this is the way that it seems to blend the old and the new, all alongside Alan Silvestri's score, consistently paying homage to the futuristic and the past in this lovely western adventure.
Silver: A more traditional selection would be the submarine claustrophobia of The Hunt for Red October, using consistent, immersive sound design to have us shuttled into this water-entombed vessel.
Bronze: I'll close out this category with the planet-erupting wonder of Total Recall, a movie that uses chases and adventure in its sound work, but ultimately it's the dying Mars giving us one giant gasp for survival that makes this medal-worthy.
Avalon
Dances with Wolves
Ghost
Home Alone
Misery
Gold: As I've said many times, the question frequently when it comes to the Best Score category is "to John Williams or not to John Williams." In 1990, I...will not John Williams (at least in the gold). But in his place we'll go with a different of my all-time favorite composers, John Barry, who probably wins this alone on the romantic majesty of "The John Dunbar Theme" (and gets his first and surely not last gold medal from this project).
Silver: That said, John Williams was very close, and I think Home Alone will stand apart as one of the best of his scores never to top the podium (Harry Potter is the best, though). I love the playfulness of this composition, keeping grand (and Christmas-y) while also adding in a bit of mischief for a film brimming with it.
Bronze: In third is another Oscar favorite doing one of the most atypical film scores of his career. Randy Newman brings a sort of nostalgic grandeur to Avalon. Even in its opening scenes, it's clearly borrowing from a memory that doesn't really exist, and he gives that sort of ephemeral quality to the music.
"I'm Checking Out," Postcards from the Edge
"King of Wishful Thinking," Pretty Woman
"Show Me Heaven," Days of Thunder
"Somewhere in My Memory," Home Alone
"Sooner or Later," Dick Tracy
Gold: We're getting a very strong repeat of Oscar's choice here, with our gold medalist matching the OVP winner in "I'm Checking Out." Shel Silverstein (yes the guy who wrote both The Giving Tree and "A Boy Named Sue") gives us a perfect musical moment for Postcards, where Meryl Streep is given the ability to come into her own after spending the whole movie in her mom's shadow.
Silver: As I said, though, John Williams is close by. Here we have a chorale arrangement that has kind of taken on a life of its own in the decades after this film, becoming a true Christmas classic as it wistfully evokes the timelessness of that holiday's songs.
Bronze: Had Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" (a BIG song for a young gay John) been eligible, it would've threatened to disrupt my Oscar-y pedigree here, but without it the other two pop hits can't quite top the 1940's lounge act that Stephen Sondheim (and Madonna) bring to "Sooner or Later."
Avalon
Dick Tracy
Edward Scissorhands
The Godfather, Part III
Hamlet
Gold: It's hard to watch the ingenuity of Dick Tracy and not laugh at where the comic book genre eventually went. It's not just the gigantic, gaudy colors or the beautiful almost Edward Hopper-esque tones of it. It's also that it reads like an actual comic book, you jumping in and feeling like you're stuck in the pages you pored over as a kid chewing Bazooka Joe.
Silver: Don't get me wrong, though, realism has its place, and the ways that Hamlet uses actual locations (filmed across a series of castles in the British Isles) transports you back in time, it feels so storied (and beautiful).
Bronze: And then of course there's the realism & magic of Avalon. A largely now-forgotten film (which was huge with Oscar at the time) gives us a bit of wonder as it recreates Baltimore and its industrial majesty (and decline) through the decades, giving us homeyness as we look at the shattered dreams of our parents through the eyes of a child.
Dances with Wolves
Days of Being Wild
The Godfather, Part III
GoodFellas
Miller's Crossing
Gold: The second-and-last time that Oscar's favorite films (Dances with Wolves and GoodFellas) faced off, and here we have Oscar's choice taking the top prize. The expanse of the American West, with its mystery and the allure that knew it was dying before it began (something Costner's film doesn't capture as well as his camera) is extraordinary-a beautiful vision of a myth.
Silver: That said, the incredible camerawork in GoodFellas would surely be at home in this category, and would've made a proper gold medalist. It's not just the frenetic way that the film captures Henry's descent into doom, but it's also the way that we get to see into this world, quite literally in the famous extended shot that walks Lorraine Bracco into a place she couldn't have dreamed.
Bronze: The films of Wong Kar Wai are always drenched in atmosphere and beauty. Days of Being Wild does that marvelously, giving us a film of interchanging loves and motives, all shot with precision and gorgeous care. You feel transported to another place & time.
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
Cyrano de Bergerac
Hamlet
Mermaids
Pretty Woman
Gold: Yes, Glenn Close is playing Gertrude, but look at the costumes-she's clearly desperate for this role to be Eleanor of Aquitaine. Every time she's onscreen in a various crown or headpiece, it's an event, something that is bound to draw the eye, and remind you that despite this being Mel Gibson's movie (and it pains to admit, but man is Mel hot with that ridiculous blonde hair, brown beard, & those fetching monk outfits), Glenn Close's wardrobe in Hamlet is the true star.
Silver: For the silver, we move to France, and the spectacularly decadent looks sported by the entire ensemble, including Gerard Depardieu's (lot of problematic men leading movies I liked in 1990) fetching red cape and blue shirt. The film's costuming sort of feels like the definitive take on Cyrano, doesn't it? When you think about him in your head, don't you pick this movie?
Bronze: Contemporary costuming is a blindside for Oscar, but it ain't for me, and when you have something like Pretty Woman coming to the forefront, truly there's a reason for that. Not only are some of these looks effortlessly chic and largely omnipresent (I distinctly remember my mom owning a version of that polka dot dress, minus the hat), but you also learn about Vivien...where she's come from, and what she aspires to be...through her increasingly chic wardrobe.
Edward Scissorhands
GoodFellas
Miller's Crossing
Misery
Postcards from the Edge
Gold: Thelma Schoonmaker has long been the wizard of Martin Scorsese's movies, making seemingly long and huge stories feel fast-paced and wonderfully-structured. GoodFellas works not just because Scorsese is trying to imbue a sense of the time (notice how exacting even the music choices are), but also in the way she uses new, advanced cutting techniques and an omnipresent narration.
Silver: Listen, some cliches are worth mentioning, and the fact that a good horror movie is made in the editing room is one of them. Misery gives us true stakes, with the claustrophobia of Annie Wilkes' house and how we're trapped there alongside Paul Sheldon, and the growing sense that we'll never escape (which makes the escape scenes all the better).
Bronze: The third here is another genre that is made in the editing room (the noir), one that has the great benefit of feeling like it is told mid-story, but not in a bad way. There are moments in Miller's Crossing where we're catching up into this world, but we also then feel flung the whole film, as if we're racing alongside all of the characters to the finish.
Cry Baby
Dick Tracy
Edward Scissorhands
Total Recall
The Witches
Gold: There's sometimes a hard line to strike between "most" and "best" when it comes to the tech categories, no more so than in the Makeup & Hairstyling category, but it's also important to recognize when they might be synonymous. The comic book creations of Dick Tracy are sometimes grotesque, sometimes absurd, but they're all spectacular, totally inviting us into Beatty's heightened world.
Silver: In most years, you'd be hard-pressed to beat Tim Burton's glorious feats in Edward Scissorhands. Not only is this a category where the craft is actually part of the story (Edward has these beautiful abstract sculptures in a sea of noted character actresses' hair), but it's also one that feels like you see the beauty of Depp in his alabaster face. He's odd, but you understand the draw (also the case with our nominated but medal-less Cry Baby).
Bronze: We finish up with Total Recall, a film where it's sometimes hard to tell how much of the craziest moments in the film (particularly the eye-popping ending) is being done through special effects and how much are the demented brilliance of the makeup team, totally turning everything about the Mars scenes up to 11.
Back to the Future Part III
Dick Tracy
Ghost
The Rescuers Down Under
Total Recall
Gold: We conclude with the last time that Oscar didn't have nominees for Best Visual Effects, and with them they only gave out a statue, though in this case it was to the correct film as I am also picking Total Recall. There are moments in this that feel more so like we're celebrating makeup effects, and taken in comparison to Arnold's next feature (Terminator 2, which would change the game for VFX), this feels sophomoric by comparison, but it's still SO much fun, and honestly the entire sequence on Mars is deliciously entertaining.
Silver: A landmark in animation, The Rescuers Down Under became the first animated film to be done entirely digitally, not requiring hand-drawn sequences. It also found a way to use CGI in a way we hadn't really seen in animated films before it, particularly the incredible sequences of Wilbur flying in the movie, and McLeach's truck that reads like they're actually being filmed with a camera.
Bronze: On the flip side, we have something like Dick Tracy which is honestly working to make the very best of existing technology. Look at the matte paintings in this movie (they're both modernist and intentional to the viewer as that's the point...we're in a comic strip), the way that it uses scale models to showcase the studio backlot aesthetic, and of course these effects combined with the fantastic makeup work really bring everything together.
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