Best Picture and Director 1991

1927/28 through 1997

What are your choices for Best Picture and Director of 1991?

Beauty and the Beast
15
21%
Bugsy
2
3%
JFK
3
4%
The Prince of Tides
1
1%
The Silence of the Lambs
15
21%
Jonathan Demme - The Silence of the Lambs
24
33%
Barry Levinson - Bugsy
0
No votes
Ridley Scott - Thelma & Louise
2
3%
John Singleton - Boyz N the Hood
1
1%
Oliver Stone - JFK
9
13%
 
Total votes: 72

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Precious Doll
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1991

Post by Precious Doll »

Well I can't complain as this is the only time I have ever been in agreement with the Academy on the Best Film and Director of the year.
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mlrg
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1991

Post by mlrg »

Not a great year for movies either, but a good lineup compared to the previous year.

JFK is a well directed film and technically brilliant but it’s too long, specially the court scenes.

The Prince of Tides is probably Streisand’s best film as a director, but that doesn’t mean it´s a great film.

Beauty and the Beast is Disney’s finest effort of the last 25 years and it’s a gem. It’s also the favorite animated film of my seven year daughter J

In my book, 1991 comes down to two films: Bugsy and The Silence of the Lambs. The first is a film I prefer on an emotional side. I’m always a sucker for film noir. The second is a brilliant piece of film making. Great script, brilliant performances and very well directed.

So I voted for Bugsy and Jonathan Demme
FilmFan720
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1991

Post by FilmFan720 »

I have not seen The Prince of Tides, but I still feel completely comfortable voting here.

1991 was the last year for quite a while where a group of very interesting studio films competed for the big prize...in 1992 we get the beginning of the Miramax push through the Oscar season and the beginning of the Academy's anglophile period that still lasts to today in a way, but here we get one of the last years where a lot of edgy, artistically brave studio films about some uncomfortable themes battled it out for the Best Picture Oscar (considering Orion as a fairly major studio at the time...).

To me, there are three pretty fantastic films all in the Best Picture line-up here, all of which I would happily endorse for Best Picture in any year. The eventual winner, The Silence of the Lambs, probably runs third for me of those if only because it doesn't feel as "major" of an achievement as JFK and Beauty and the Beast, two pretty astonishing achievements in filmmaking where you don't expect it. Throw in Bugsy, a strong lower-tier nominee in most any year, and you have a strong grouping of films.

Best Director is even better, and one of the strongest lineups in quite a while. You have three strong Best Picture nominees with corresponding nominations, plus the addition of Ridley Scott (whose best film, Thelma and Louise, should have been a nominee this year) and surprise nominee John Singleton, a historic pick that singled the emerging power of the independent films of the 1990s.

My vote is going to Beauty and the Beast and Stone, but there are lots of other great choices here.

My Top 5s
1. Beauty and the Beast
2. JFK
3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
4. The Silence of the Lambs
5. My Own Private Idaho

1. Oliver Stone, JFK
2. Jonathan Demme, The Silence of the Lambs
3. James Cameron, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
4. Gus Van Sant, My Own Private Idaho
5. Ridley Scott, Thelma and Louise
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Best Picture and Director 1991

Post by Big Magilla »

It's fitting that the Disney heirs should have the distinction of being the producers of the first animated feature to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Not sine the 1-2-3-4 punch of Disney's 1937-1942 masterworks, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Pinocchio; Dumbo and Bambi had the art of animation produced such wonder as the new Disney was able to accomplish with their string of Broadway inspired show tune animated musicals beginning with The Little Mermaid two years earlier. The art reached its high point with Beauty and the Beast with its classic story, filmed to perfection in a much different but equally brilliant manner by Jean Cocteau 45 years earlier, enhanced by a perfectly charming score by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman sung by some of Broadway's greatest voices and a who-knew-he-could-sing Robby Benson who matches note-for-note Paige O'Hara, Richard White, David Ogden Stiers and the glorious Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury. Who could ask for more? Apparently the Academy's mostly actor membership who couldn't bring themselves to vote for a film that didn't give front and center to the actors' faces.

They chose instead to honor a horror film released way back in January. Like the animated feature, no horror film had previously won and only one had ever been nominated in the top category - The Exorcist 18 years earlier. Just as it had been time to honor a western for the first time in nearly 60 years the year before, it was time to honor the horror film over the animated film. Not that it was a bad choice.; The Silence of the Lambs was one of the best films in the genre and its almost year-long box office domination made it a popular winner. Jonathan Demme receiving his first and only Oscar nomination was certainly a worthy choice.

That film's closest rival was probably Oliver Stone's well-made if over-heated conspiracy film, JFK which featured some very fine character acting by Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman as well as Kevin Costner, the Oscar winning director/star of last year's Dances With Wolves, in the lead.

I didn't think Barry Levinson's Bugsy had much of a chance despite its impressive L.A. Film Critics and Golden Globe wins. It was just one too many gangster films at the end of a long cycle of gangster films. Barbra Streisand's critically reviled The Prince of Tides had no chance.

For John Singleton, the up-and-coming African-American director of The Boyz N the Hood, the nomination was considered honor enough especially since he received the nod over the better known Spike Lee, whose 1991 film Jungle Fever came away empty handed two years after he received his first and only Oscar nomination to date, aside from his documentary nomination seven years later, for his breakout film, Do the Right Thing.

Most conspicuous by its absence from the Best Picture race was Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise despite six nominations including Scott's first for Best Director.

Other films of note which might have been considered include Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King; Jon Avnet's Fried Green Tomatoes; Robert Mulligan's The Man in the Moon; Guv Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho; Agnieszka Hoolland's Europa Europa (Agnieszka Holland); Garry Marshall's Frankie & Johnny and Peter Chelsom's Hear My Song.

In case there's any doubt, I voted for Beauty and the Beast and Jonathan Demme.
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