With the 83rd Academy Awards upon us, we look back at some of the most shocking decisions on Oscar night in recent years.
This Sunday all eyes will be fixed on TV screens for Oscar night. Despite being constantly derided for being increasingly irrelevant or out of touch with modern audiences, the ceremony still manages to throw up plenty of memorable moments and surprising winners, though not always for the right reasons.
If you pick up any Oscar preview, you’ll find the usual suspects expected to walk away with a gold statuette Sunday night – Colin Firth, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman and The King’s Speech. Lets hope this year’s winners aren’t as easy to predict as that however – much as we hate seeing our favourite films robbed on Oscar night we must admit that shock winners keep everyone talking.
Best Picture 1998
And the Oscar goes to… Shakespeare In Love
But it should’ve gone to… Saving Private Ryan
What the hell happened here? Spielberg’s gripping and harrowing Saving Private Ryan not only boasts perhaps the most astounding opening thirty minutes of any historical epic you’d care to mention, it also single-handedly killed off the WW2 movie genre, as directors and screenwriters (bar Michael Bay and his risible Pearl Harbor) effectively gave up trying to top it.
Today Saving Private Ryan is largely seen as one of the greatest war movies of all time, executive producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg later revolutionised television with their companion piece Band of Brothers.
In contrast, the incredibly safe historical rom-com Shakespeare In Love beat out two incredible WW2 flicks, with The Thin Red Line another 1998 Best Picture loser. With hindsight, the Academy’s decision is further mystifying considering Shakespeare In Love’s non-existent legacy, as the comedy is best remembered today for Gwyneth Paltrow’s cringe-inducing Best Actress speech.
Best Director 1990
And the Oscar goes to… Dance With Wolves
But it should’ve gone to… Goodfellas
Here is a decision so crazy it took the Academy 17 years to attempt to make up for – after all, it was not until 2007 that Martin Scorcese finally won an Oscar for Best Director for The Departed. As much as we love The Departed, it’s no Goodfellas.
While some purists may prefer Raging Bull or Taxi Driver (which along with Network and All The President’s Men lost out to Rocky in 1976, believe it or not), we feel that Goodfellas is Scorcese’s most memorable and best-paced work in his legendary career.
On the other hand, despite being better than it’s blue space cat remake, Avatar, Dances with Wolves is simply not the in the same level as Scorcese’s gangster classic.
Best Picture 1941
And the Oscar goes to… How Green Was My Valley
But it should’ve gone to… Citizen Kane
Okay fair enough, we’re using our magic powers of hindsight to deride the Academy’s pick here but being honest, how many of you have ever heard of How Green Was My Valley? Also, what a terrible title for a movie.
Citizen Kane is considered by many to be the greatest movie ever made, an extraordinary achievement considering it was Orson Welles’ (voice talent for Transformers: The Movie) first ever motion picture. Despite being nominated for nine awards on the night, Welles went home with just a statuette for Best Original Screenplay. Instead a movie about a Welsh family and their mining community won out – think about that for a second.
Before the millennium or Willennium, in honour of Will Smith’s Will 2K hit single, dawned upon us, the American Film Institute awarded their 100 Years… 100 Movies best-of list for the greatest movies of the last century. Single Oscar award winner Citizen Kane topped the list, while How Green Was My Valley was nowhere to be seen – in your face deceased director John Ford!
Best Costume Design 1982
And the Oscar goes to… Gandhi
But it should’ve gone to… Tron
This one doesn’t need much explanation. Tron inspired a generation of artists and designers with it’s state-of-the-art, outrageous and wildly imaginative costumes. Ben Kingsley’s Gandhi, as seen above, wore a dhoti, a Hindu loincloth, for nearly every single scene in his eponymous biography. We’re sure it’s a lovely loincloth and everything but… it’s still a loincloth.
Best Picture 2002/2003
And the Oscar goes to… A Beautiful Mind/ Chicago
But it should’ve gone to… Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring/ The Two Towers
A common criticism of the Academy is that they are too reticent to buck convention, rarely handing out Best Picture Oscars to anything other than broad comedies, feted dramas or historical epics. It’s why Annie Hall beat out Star Wars: A New Hope, why E.T lost to Gandhi, why Chariots of Fire trumped Raiders of the Lost Ark and why Inception will most likely walk away empty-handed in the major categories this year.
Hollywood’s conservative winners were never more easily demonstrable than 2002 and 2003, in which Peter Jackson’s monumental adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s classic series won over critics and audiences alike, yet were cruelly snubbed by the mundane (A Beautiful Mind) and the downright irritating (Chicago).
Though the Academy would eventually atone for their sins a year later, awarding trilogy-closer Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’s with the win in 2004, there aren’t many film buffs that would announce that the third installment is their favourite.
If we’re being entirely truthful, we’d have to say that the last half-hour felt a bit like a giant victory lap on Jackson’s part. Oh and City of God should’ve won Best Director that year instead… sorry.
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