1990 Oscar Viewing Project

"It's the nineties, for God's sake," and indeed it is as we encounter our 34th Oscar Viewing Project (see links to the other 33 below).  The Oscar Viewing Project is now in its 2nd third (we'll likely never be below that at this pace, as I try to get through 5-7 of them a year), and we're entering the first year of what my brother & I refer to as our "wilderness period" of movie watching.  I was born in the 1980's, but the movies didn't become my life until the mid-1990's.  This was driven by a series of events, specifically watching my first Oscars at the 1995 ceremony (i.e. the Braveheart Oscars) on repeat after my brother & I taped it, the inclusion of AMC (and eventually TCM) in my parents' cable package, the advent of the AFI 100 Years TV specials, the discovery of Entertainment Weekly at our school library, the opening of a standalone video rental place in my town, my parents letting me watch PG-13 movies, and my mom instituting Tuesday night movies, where she would take my brother & I (regardless of what was showing) to the 7 PM showing (i.e. the G/PG/sometimes PG-13 slot) while my dad had golf night, and so pretty much every week in the summer from roughly 1995 to 1998 we would watch a movie.  This gave me a pretty extensive vernacular with what was going on in the world of movies, and generally meant I had seen 20-30 films from the calendar year by year's end.

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. 

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.

Director

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).

Actor

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.

Actress

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.

Supporting Actor

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.

Supporting Actress

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.

Foreign Language Film

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).

Adapted Screenplay

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.

Original Screenplay

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.

Sound

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.

Sound Editing

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.

Score

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.

Original Song

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.

Art Direction

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!

Cinematography

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.

Costume Design

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.

Film Editing

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).

Makeup

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.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1964, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

OVP: Actress (1999)

OVP: Best Actress (1999)

The Nominees Were...

Annette Bening, American Beauty

Janet McTeer, Tumbleweeds

Julianne Moore, The End of the Affair

Meryl Streep, Music of the Heart

Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

My Thoughts: In our final 1999 acting race, we move into Best Actress.  Going back this far, it's fun to see where the actresses' careers went.  Two performers were on their first nominations here, and would only get nominated one more time (to date)-one won both, the other lost both.  We have two actresses who were in their prime at the time, having never won, and again-one of them went on to win a "career achievement" style statue, while the other has not won yet.  And in the middle of it all is the actress who basically defines the Academy Awards, one who was getting maybe her least interesting nomination, or at least her worst-regarded.

That actress is Meryl Streep.  This is such a strange role on-paper to get an Oscar nomination.  Originally intended for Madonna, and directed by horror icon Wes Craven, it's hardly the type of pitch that ends with an Oscar nomination, and let's be honest-if it was anyone other than Streep it surely wouldn't have.  The movie is too saccharine, frequently too reliant on familiar story beats.  I think Streep is better than that, but I also am not impressed by physicality; much was made about her ability to learn the violin to play in the movie, but that's musical talent-not necessarily acting.  Her accent work is acting, and impressive, but she can't really make this movie any good, and if you're in the Best Actress field...shouldn't you be able to do more than "better than the movie" when the movie is a snooze?

The same can be said for Tumbleweeds, a better film but one that I think kind of misses the mark in terms of the lead performance.  McTeer is such an open performer-there's a charm and sex appeal in her Mary Jo that makes it impossible for characters (and the audience) not to open up to her.  But I needed more from this performance-technical skill isn't all there is, we also want motive, and I do think McTeer has a sense of where this character is (metaphorically) going.  It's hard to know how much of this is the screenwriter's fault in writing such a specific character with no direction (in a road trip movie, no less), but it's definitely an issue for McTeer's work compared to some of these performers.

Look at someone like Hilary Swank, after all, who does have a sense of her performer in a movie that (while good) is pretty bleak.  Swank fills Brandon Teena with such humanity in the role.  I like that even some of Brandon's mistakes feel real, which is hard to do in a movie, and that's because Swank is giving  such hope to her character, trying to fill them with a sense of life after denying who they were for such a long time.  Swank fills the movie with more feeling than (if we're being honest) the script is giving her, and so this is rising above the movie, but it's a better movie than McTeer or Streep are using as their platform.

It's worth remembering this is Best Actress, not Best Picture (we give to the best performance, not to the performance in the movie I liked the best), but if we were focusing on the movie I like the best, it'd undoubtedly be American Beauty, and Bening is one of its best parts.  The best stuff in Bening's work here is that she plays her character as so guarded.  Watching this as an adult, and with a more modern lens, you can see that she's added a cautious feminism to a character that easily could be a harpy (that's largely how she's written).  Look at how she's largely moved beyond her husband, moved beyond her family even...she's a realtor so to invest in that metaphor, they were a starter home, she's ready for her dream home.  She understands the film's comedy, but more so she understands its tragedy, giving the movie's best(?) performance.

We'll finish with Julianne Moore's turn in The End of the Affair, that time in her career where she was regularly playing cloistered women in period movies.  The movie is very much my speed (I love me a doomed romance), but it doesn't really know how to explore its topic, particularly its sexuality (for a movie that's quite carnal in its approach, all of the sex is limited to the first fifteen minutes).  Moore is unable to get beyond this (and neither is Fiennes, which makes you confident it's the writers doing this given they're two of our best actors), giving us a finite scope into Sarah, never really discovering her balance in the picture.  It's worth noting for Moore in 1999 that this was almost certainly a cumulative award (she was also doing noted work in four other movies-Cookie's Fortune, Magnolia, An Ideal Husband, & A Map of the World), but we have a strict OVP rule where we only judge the film in front of us, not the collective works that might've contributed to a nomination, and in this case, that just doesn't cut it.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes give us both Musical/Comedy and Drama, so we have ten names to start with.  Drama went with Swank, besting Bening, Moore, Streep, & Sigourney Weaver (A Map of the World), while McTeer took the comedy prize, topping Julianne Moore (An Ideal Husband), Julia Roberts (Notting Hill), Sharon Stone (The Muse...and yes is the Sharon Stone luxury watch scandal at the Globes), and Reese Witherspoon (Election).  The SAG Awards went with the exact same lineup as Oscar, with Bening winning, while BAFTA also picked Bening, though she beat Moore (End of the Affair), Emily Watson (Angela's Ashes), & Linda Bassett (East is East) for the nomination.  In sixth here, I think we're looking at either Weaver or Witherspoon.  Weaver is more in the Academy's wheelhouse (sturdy performance in a stiff issues picture from a former favorite), while Witherspoon got an actual nomination for her film (Election was up for writing).  I think Weaver makes more sense, especially given she hadn't been nominated in a decade at the time & Witherspoon's picture was a bit edgy for Oscar, but I could believe either.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Oscar is quite populist, but does have a snobby streak when it comes to genre pictures, and that includes romantic-comedies.  We have talked very little about Notting Hill, a film that has its faults, but I love so wholeheartedly I don't really care, and the thing I'm most confident in is Julia Roberts' pitch-perfect Hollywood actress.  She's playing a version of herself, but it's so filled with heart, hope, and prickliness from being bruised constantly that if it is herself...you just want to root for her harder. A year before she won the Oscar, I would've had this as a lead-up to Erin Brockovich.

Oscar’s Choice: In what was a coin flip race at the time (I think some people have rewritten this to not be as close as it was), Swank won over Bening, costing the latter her best shot at an Academy Award to date.

My Choice: Those are the two names to consider, and while I partially want to give it to Bening (she has yet to win an OVP and only has one guaranteed nomination left), OVP rules say I can't take outside factors into account, and Swank is slightly better.  Behind these two, I would go (in order): McTeer, Moore, and then Streep.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you sticking with Oscar & I for Hilary Swank, or do you prefer one of the other ladies of the category?  Do you feel it's okay to acknowledge that Moore almost certainly got this nomination for five films instead of one...and how many other performances like that have happened through the years and are now lost to lack of historical context?  And was it Witherspoon or Weaver that nearly missed this race?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 1999: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously, in 1999

Past Best Actress Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

OVP: Actress (2023)

OVP: Best Actress (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Annette Bening, Nyad

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon

Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall

Carey Mulligan, Maestro

Emma Stone, Poor Things

My Thoughts: Recency bias is one of the most annoying things about being a part of online social media discussions about the Oscars.  You will hear the most insane hyperbole.  Last season, it was a near constant stream of "Stephanie Hsu losing to Jamie Lee Curtis is akin to a war crime" madness (news flash: Jamie Lee Curtis is nowhere near one of the worst acting wins of all time...she wasn't even the worst acting win that night).  In 2023, it felt like this was directed at Lily Gladstone's snub for Best Actress.  As you'll find out in a second, I really liked Gladstone-I think she's talented, and I think this is the sort of performance that grows on you.  But no nominee in 2023, despite what you may have heard on Twitter, was an "all-timer" in a field of winners that includes Blanche DuBois, Ada McGrath, & Mary Poppins.

Gladstone's work, though, is really wonderful.  I loved the interiority of this part.  She is a woman conditioned to only show her true self to people she can trust, and it's shocking to watch the film and understand how little she actually trusts her husband.  The monologue toward the end, where she starts to interrogate him to understand what was real & what wasn't in their marriage, is devastating less because she's realizing this man she has been with for so many years is a liar, but more so because she realizes that she never was able to trust anyone to begin with.  This is the sort of measured consistency she brings to her Mollie Kyle.

Speaking of Twitter controversies, you'd also think that the Academy had committed one of the ultimate sins by choosing Annette Bening over Margot Robbie in Barbie (spoiler alert for my My Ballot on Sunday: neither of them should've been here).  Bening likely got her citation for Nyad because she wanted it, Hollywood loves her, and there's a general consensus that she should have an Oscar by now, which will require some more nominations to rectify.  But I do think that this is better than the reputation it's earned (even if it's not very good...oh lord, why is Twitter making me defend Nyad?).  Bening's chemistry with Jodie Foster is strong here, and I like the single-minded determination she brings to a champion, but the film's perspective is so dull (not getting into the controversy about Nyad after-the-fact was a choice, and a weird one), and this doesn't have all of the best bite that Bening's finest creations have.  But Margot Robbie is doing fine, so settle down.

Emma Stone's work in Poor Things continues a run since her first Oscar that was inevitably leading to a second, as she's too famous and too good to be ignored.  I loved what she did with Bella Baxter.  So much of this season has been me realizing that Poor Things has aged badly for me, but that doesn't mean that I'm blind to its bet asset.  The way that she approaches almost a dozen characters at once (Bella's evolution being so pronounced and exact in each scene, you have to come up with someone new almost every chapter), it's genius.  This is, I'm happy to say, a win that is going to age quite well, as it'll be correctly a definitive performance of her career.

Sandra Huller's work in Anatomy of a Fall could be the announcement of a new international talent (or she could simply be Jean DuJardin, never to be heard of again from Oscar voters).  I think she's much better than a picture I didn't particularly care for (the overlong legal melodrama where they tell you the ending at the beginning is not a genre I want), though I thought she was better in The Zone of Interest.  The work here is layered, with her intentionally not showing too much of her hand (so that the "is she guilty?" question works), though that also holds back some of her performance.  Part of what we need to realize toward the end is if she believes she's innocent, as that's where Huller's performance is going, but we never quite get there.

The final nominee is Carey Mulligan, who like Huller is given a less than ideal vehicle, but one that she makes the best of the situation.  Bradley Cooper's work here is unfulfilled, but I don't feel like his onscreen wife has the same issue.  Mulligan plays the part of a beard, in many other movies a role that would be milked for sympathy or be a joke, as complicated and complete.  We realize that she loved Lenny, but also loved him from a distance because that was the only way she could without abandoning herself to a man she'll never be able to have fully.  I love the brittleness of her work, the way that she also needs to stay "in the closet."  The only thing really lacking is I don't think her ending gives us enough catharsis with her Felicia, but perhaps even that is keeping in character.

Other Precursor Contenders: As you know, the Globes separate between Comedy/Musical and Drama, and for some reason had six-wide fields in 2023, so we have 12 nominees.  Setting up the matchup for the season, we had Gladstone taking Drama over Bening, Huller, Mulligan, Greta Lee (Past Lives), & Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), while Comedy/Musical went to Stone over Fantasia Barrino (The Color Purple), Jennifer Lawrence (No Hard Feelings), Natalie Portman (May December), Alma Poysti (Fallen Leaves), & Margot Robbie (Barbie).  SAG favored Gladstone atop Bening, Mulligan, Robbie, & Stone, while BAFTA went with Stone against Barrino, Huller, Mulligan, Robbie, & Vivian Oparah (Rye Lane).  In sixth place, it was almost certainly Margot Robbie.  She was in a major Best Picture nominee, playing a title character...that's usually enough to make it (for the record, I predicted Bening correctly which was the nominee most missed if they went with the Barbie actress-I missed Mulligan in favor of Robbie).  Despite what future "precursor only" readers will say, I don't think her biggest competition was Greta Lee or Fantasia Barrino-I think it was Aunjanue Ellis for Origin, which could've been the biggest shock of the morning given its late-breaking buzz (if it had opened two weeks earlier, I think she gets in).

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I actually like a performance, in a biopic, and it gets precursor support...and still nothing.  Academy, what are you doing to me by ignoring Cailee Spaeny like this?!?

Oscar’s Choice: In a truly tight race, Stone's position as a producer, her star power, and headlining in a film that the Academy seemed to want to honor more got her a win over Lily Gladstone, one that it was clear she wasn't entirely prepared for (and it's not obvious she even wanted given whom she was beating).

My Choice: I'm going to pick the opposite with Gladstone taking it over Stone (my second place).  I think Gladstone's work is a quiet triumph, whereas Stone's is a loud one, and works more effectively (particularly in both of their films' last thirty minutes).  Behind them, let's go with Mulligan, Huller, and then Bening.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  In the battle of the rolling stones, were you Team Emma or Team Lily?  Are we ever going to see Annette Bening clutching her own Oscar?  And why do people feel the need to throw out such hyperbole about the Academy Awards every season (or in general)?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2023: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Actress Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Actress (2004)

OVP: Best Actress (2004)

The Nominees Were...

Annette Bening, Being Julia

Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace

Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake

Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby

Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

My Thoughts: When I write these articles, most often I'm writing them with an idea of how I'm going to rank the nominees, and usually I stick to that.  While I don't always know what I'm going to say about the contenders, I have an idea of roughly the order that they might turn up, and it's rare that I change my mind talking about them out loud.  The 2004 Best Actress contenders, though, are a race where I genuinely change my mind all the time.  The race features three actresses giving some of the best work of their careers, three terrific performances that I struggle to be able to discuss without tripping over myself, and honestly leave flummoxed as to who is the "best" of the bunch.  So...this one's going to be a mystery for both of us.

Before we get to those performances, though, let's discuss the also-rans (since the eventual winner is genuinely a mystery to me, I'm going to lay down the cards pretty quickly on the remaining nominees).  Catalina Sandino Moreno managed to land a nomination for Maria Full of Grace in spite of that film being disqualified for Foreign Language Film for being "insufficiently Colombian" (early on it was the frontrunner for that category).  Sandino Moreno gives a heavy-handed performance as Maria, playing her inwardly, oftentimes far-too-much, as the movie goes on.  It's a tough role, and one that's in a very serious movie, but Sandino Moreno does most of her acting through her eyes, which can work...it's just not enough to save a movie that relies more on subject matter to carry its story than its actual characters.  Still, I'm not going to knock this too hard just because it was such a hard-fought nomination (the only Colombia film in history to be nominated for an acting prize)...it's just kind of a middling performance.

The same is true for Hilary Swank.  Swank is not bad in Million Dollar Baby, but that this performance dominated the whole season is a real question in terms of Oscar's taste.  Swank spends much of the film letting a lack of expression be her domineering trait, allowing the audience do most of the heavy-lifting in our interpretations of her Maggie.  It's a blasé piece of work, five years after her first win (in a weird way Swank is quite similar to Luise Rainer in that she won two Oscars with virtually nothing else-to date-of note in films, though unlike Rainer Swank has kept working in the pursuing decades).  Eastwood & Freeman are much better in the movie, giving at least a story behind their performance, but Swank's work is mostly reliant upon physicality and reacting...we don't know who this woman is, and she's at her best when she's being interpreted by the other actors in the film.  That's maybe a decent directorial trick to have an actor pull off, but it's not a great performance.

Swank in 1999 beat Annette Bening for her trophy, and she famously did the same in 2004, taking the trophy from Bening for Being Julia.  Being Julia is the least-remembered of the three "big" performances in this category, and it is (while still a great movie), the least of the three actual films on its own merits.  But Bening owns the screen here, and makes Julia Lambert a totally unique creation.  Borrowing from the best divas, she plays Julia as a shrewd, brilliant, but impetuous figure, putting the cruelty of a world-leaving-her-behind (even though she's far from ready to give up the limelight, and as she shows through the film, the limelight should be staying on her) in every moment of the movie.  Her triumphant final act, when she "ad libs," totally owning those who thought they'd gotten one-over on her is magic, and Being Julia becomes the kind of movie that is truly elevated by one outstanding central piece-of-work.  This might be my favorite performance from Annette Bening, which is saying something.

It's also saying something, though, that Kate Winslet's Clementine Kruczynski is perhaps her greatest piece-of-work (I told you this would be hard).  Winslet plays Clementine as a free-spirit "manic pixie dream girl" who is truly complicated (or "fucked up," as she'd put it in the film).  It's a hard role to land-she has to make Clementine not likable in the way we traditionally associate with romantic comedies, but she's also the kind of character that will make you fall in love with her.  That's not easy, and what is at the crux of Eternal Sunshine being a genuinely beautiful movie: these people love each other in spite of themselves, and whether or not they can make it work, that love (tough, raw, sometimes ugly) is tangible throughout Winslet's work.  It's bravura stuff.

Staunton gets the most traditionally dramatic part, but also the least showy of the three women.  Staunton's Vera Drake, an ordinary housewife who helps young women in difficult situations by performing abortions on them, is a triumph of understated acting.  Staunton makes Vera not only be ordinary, but feel ordinary-the way she goes about her day, she is someone who you pass by on the street, and she's okay with that.  This makes her atypical behavior as a woman who performs abortions so extraordinary-this secret life isn't something she considers unusual or outside-her-realm, but instead something that you do in the same way you buy bread or help a neighbor who has tripped on the sidewalk.  Abortion is the sort of gut check issue where people come in with callous, almost malignant attitudes about the other side of the debate, but Staunton's Vera Drake is so brimming with soul that you almost feel like she could bridge the gap.  An astonishing piece-of-work.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  Swank won for Best Drama, over Staunton as well as Scarlett Johansson (A Love Song for Bobby Long...which I've never seen & feel a little bad about-anyone else see this movie or have any memory of it?), Nicole Kidman (Birth), and Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Volume 2), while Bening bested Winslet, Ashley Judd (De-Lovely), Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), & Emmy Rossum (The Phantom of the Opera).  SAG went with the same lineup & winner as Oscar, while BAFTA totally swung for the fences, giving their trophy to Staunton while nominating Winslet for both Eternal Sunshine and Finding Neverland, and also nominating Zhang Ziyi (House of Flying Daggers) and Charlize Theron a year late for Monster.  In terms of sixth place, I honestly think that Oscar didn't really have a lot of competition other than these five, but at the time I recall the closest contender was Thurman, with Rossum a distant seventh, so that's probably what it was.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Obviously three of these contenders would make my personal Top 5, and so close to the end (we'll do "My Ballots" next week) I don't want to play my cards too much here since you already know 60% of my nominees.  That being said, I do wonder what would have happened if Uma Thurman had somehow been able to compete for the full Kill Bill franchise in one year...the second half isn't as good as the first, but combined this is also the role of her lifetime, and it's a pity that she didn't score a nod either in 2003 or 2004 for her work in this series.

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar, despite not yet having given a trophy to either Bening or Winslet yet in 2004 (half of that they've since corrected) chose to give the award to Swank, likely by a bigger margin than her more celebrated first win.

My Choice: We'll go backwards here.  Swank is last, since she does the least with her performance of the bunch, and I think she gets a better film to work within than Sandino Moreno (so not getting more out of that script is a larger crime).  In bronze, I'm going with Staunton.  If she as in 2003 or 2005, she'd win, so this is a performance that deserves credit.  For the win, I'm going to go with...Winslet?  I think so.  It's a harder role to nail, and though Bening gets the best scene in the movie, Winslet's performance is just a bit more well-rounded.  Literally, though-in all of the years of the Oscars if I was only afforded one Best Actress tie this is probably where I'd use it-it's that close...picking one over the other feels a crime with work this strong.  I will continue to go back-and-forth in my head on this, but in terms of the official OVP, Kate Winslet gets this trophy.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with me (cautiously) in Team Kate or do you prefer the runaway winner of Swank?  How exactly is it that Swank beat three performances that are all clearly better than hers (was it a genuine vote split)?  And where does Uma Thurman stand in your personal 2003 & 2004 ballots?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2004: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2004

Past Best Actress Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019