1994 Oscar Shouldabeens

[Reza]

As for 1994, yes, it was a year of many great acting performances in all but the leading actress category.

Thankfully the Academy had the good sense (for once) to award the only great performance in this category - Jessica Lange in Blue Sky!

[Big Magilla]

Well I said I'd nominate him, I didn't say I'd give him the award. Neither Turturro nor Leguizamo are as annoying as Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider.

[Damien]

In fact the only thing I'd nominate him for is the most annoying actor of the last quarter century.

No, that honor must be reserved for another John: John Leguizamo.

[Big Magilla]

I think Janet Maslin made a salient point about the Academy's nominating Scofield instead -- hadn't the voters made much the same decision as had the producers of Twenty One: preferring to spotlight the cultured WASP rather than the annoying Jew?

I don't. I find him just as annoying when he's playing Italians. In fact the only thing I'd nominate him for is the most annoying actor of the last quarter century.

[Big Magilla]

I have always had a problem with Arthur Miller's writing. He had a penchant for stating the obvious in speeches no one in real lfie could possibly make.

aka the stylized form of theater writing. Plays are not expected to be dead-on accurate portrayals of how people talk in real life, even if they seem realistic.

No one in real life could possibly talk in Tennessee Williams' poetic, grotesque manner of writing.

Or O'Neill's long speeches, either, but they are glorious to listen to. Miller's characters' speeches are mostly boring, though they do allow his actors to ham it up, which is why so many of them love doing his plays.

[Mister Tee]

Well, I'll take a couple of contrary positions here.

First, I'll speak for the apparently unpopular pro-Turturro side. I thought his performance took incredible risks and was completely successful. His character was supposed to be someone who annoyed people, to the extent they wanted him off TV at all costs. Normally when we're shown such a character, the writer and actors shade him with such sympathy that we consider those who don't like him meanies -- the epitome of this would be the Potsy character on Happy Days, who's supposedly such a geek no one wants to be around him, but who seems perfectly benign to us. In real life, though, there's a reason geeks are shunned: they're damned irritating to be in a room with. This, to me, is what Turturro dared to play, and I thought he was robbed of nomination for pulling it off. Not at all to demean Scofield, who I thought was also terrific in the film (as was Fiennes, who was barely considered for best actor). But I thought Turturro's work of another stripe entirely. And, I think Janet Maslin made a salient point about the Academy's nominating Scofield instead -- hadn't the voters made much the same decision as had the producers of Twenty One: preferring to spotlight the cultured WASP rather than the annoying Jew?

I do think the supporting actor roster as a whole was strong that year: Palmintieri's was, for me, the best performance in Bullets (never quite got the extravagant praise for Wiest, who I like otherwise); Landau was glorious; and Jackson blew everyone else off the screen. I do think Jackson was properly placed in supporting -- presuming he and Travolta were going to be categorized separately. Jackson was unquestionably better -- I'd have voted for him, even over Landau -- but in terms of screen time, his absence during the whole date-with-Uma sequence made him the logical one to receive lower placement.

Damien is right to cite 1993 as an even better bunch. Whoever your fifth choice is from that year (mine is Postlethwaite), he was probably good enough to win many other years.

The '94 supporting actress slate may be the last truly surprising one we've seen -- Harris was a long-shot, Mirren and Tilly came from absolutely nowhere. This all presumably happened because there was so little enthusiasm for any contenders apart from Wiest and Uma. I guess I'm alone here, though, in not thinking much of Robin Wright (later Penn)'s work in Gump; I found her performance pretty uninspiring (as I have alot of her work, though I recently loved her in Nine Lives). Given the scarcity of strong candidates that year -- and, as BJ cites, Gump's otherwise strong run through the categories -- I have to feel most in the actors' branch stood with me in being unimpressed.

[Damien]

aka the stylized form of theater writing. Plays are not expected to be dead-on accurate portrayals of how people talk in real life, even if they seem realistic.

I don't mind Arthur Miller's stylized dialogue (although the constant refrain of "Attention must be paid" is pretty bad). What I object to in his writing are the melodramatic plot turns and the banality of the points he's making (as well as the obviousness with which he makes them).

[The Original BJ]

I wasn't Oscar-watching at the time, but Robin Wright's lack of nomination for Forrest Gump strikes me as one of the most inexplicable omissions in the past two decades. (And it's not that it bothers me so much more than other omissions, although she deserved a nomination, but I find simply NO way to explain how she could have been ignored.) With a phenom like Gump scoring far better than it should have (sweeping up less predictable nods like Art Direction, Makeup, and Sound Effects Editing), it seems as if the film scored in every possible Oscar category BUT Best Supporting Actress.

But why? Wright's performance is emotional, substantial, and the best in the film. What exactly did not equate here?

[Sonic Youth]

I have always had a problem with Arthur Miller's writing. He had a penchant for stating the obvious in speeches no one in real lfie could possibly make.

aka the stylized form of theater writing. Plays are not expected to be dead-on accurate portrayals of how people talk in real life, even if they seem realistic.

No one in real life could possibly talk in Tennessee Williams' poetic, grotesque manner of writing.

Pet peeve.

[Damien]

I can't stand Arthur Miller either. I think Death Of A Salesman is twaddle.

At the time, the surprise omission for most people was Sally Field (and no one had seen Jennifer Tilly's nomination coming, but Bullets did surprisingly well with Oscar voters). Helen Mirren's nondescript performance was also an unexpected nominee. I wish Robin Wright had been nominated, since for me her lovely performace is the only bearable thing in that movie.

I think John Turturro was more anticipated to be a nominee than Scofield, but for once the voters showed surprising good sense. Bubba in Gump had somenomination talk, but not as much as Sinise.

Sabin, I think the 1993 Supporting Actor slate was even stronger than 1994's.

[Big Magilla]

I have always had a problem with Arthur Miller's writing. He had a penchant for stating the obvious in speeches no one in real lfie could possibly make. I never for a moment believed Joan Allen, but I did believe Scofield's inquisitor.

As for 1994, yes, it was a year of many great acting performances in all but the leading actress category. Pulp Ficiton was an ensemble work so all all the actors, for my money, should have been considered in the supporting categories where there was a wealth of fine performacnes to choose from, so much so that both Travolta and Morgan Freeman in Shawshank were elevated to the lead category.

In the supporting actress category, Robin Wright in Forrest Gump, Virna Lisa in Queen Margot and Kirsten Dunst in Interview With a Vampire were all unjustly ignored and a case could be made as well for Sally Field in Gump and Sophia Loren in the otherwise unwatchable Ready to Wear over Jenniner Tilly. Helen Mirren and Rosemary Harris are fine actresses, and they gave customarily fine performances in The Madness of King George and Tom & Viv respectively, but they were far down on my list in 1994.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1154890048

[Sabin]

I liked Joan Allen also.

I saw 'Quiz Show' again recently and A) I'm very surprised that Turturro wasn't nominated, and B) he's quite annoying. A mannered, tic-laden performance from an actor I loved in 'Barton Fink' and 'Jungle Fever'. I think Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote in her Oscar picks something like "You keep thinking about Scofield's performance long after the credits roll." For an actor who is in the film for probably no more than ten or fifteen minutes, that's an amazing accomplishment.

It seems to me that the '94 lineup for Best Supporting Actor has to be one of the greatestest I've ever seen. Scofield. Martin Landau, whose performance is a movie in itself. Jackson, one of the year's best leading performances delegating to supporting (I really don't want an argument, please. Can we just not?). Sinise, damn near transcending the schmaltz. And Chazz Palmentari. 'Bullets over Broadway' for me might be Woody Allen's last hurrah, and Chazz's Cheech holds a special place in my heart.

It's easy hyperbole, but I really can't think of another time nominees like this have happened. Was anybody else expected besides John Turturro over Paul Scofield? I look at the Globe nominations from that year and I see Kevin Bacon nominated for 'The River Wild', which I have not seen and would otherwise shrug off the very concept were Curtis Hanson not the director. Anybody else? Bruce Willis for his double coup of 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Nobody's Fool'? God forbid, was Hopkins in the running for his awful work in 'Legends of the Fall'. Or the actor who played Bubba?

I would have to think that biggest surprise would Robin Wright Penn not being nominated for 'Forrest Gump.' Did anybody see that coming?

[Eric]

I thought Joan Allen was great in The Crucible... Scofield was really good too, but so were George Gaynes and Rob Campbell. Underrated movie on the whole.

[Big Magilla]

Scofield wasn't a surprise to me. I thought he was wonderful, and since it had been almost 30 years since his only previous nomination (and win) for A Man for All Seaons he was certainly due. The surprise to me was Turturro's Golden Globe and SAG nods. As for the Oscar nominations, Nigel Hawthorne over Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption, Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Ralph Fiennes in Quiz Show was the biggest surprise along with the silly nomination for Jennifer Tilly's shrill performance in Bullets ocer Broadway.

Scofield was for me also the best thing about the film version of Arthur Miller's overwrought The Cruicle two years later and the only one who deserved Oscar consideration for that - although it was Joan Allen who was the only one nominated for her overheated performance.

[dws1982]

I don't remember anything about the 94 Oscars other than a few details about the show itself. (It was the first one I watched.) Since the movie has been on cable a lot lately, I've been wondering: Was Paul Scofield's nomination for Quiz Show a surprise?

Turturro got more precursor love, and had the showier part, so it seems like he would've been seen as the more likely nominee. But his character was also unlikeable and annoying that it's easy to see why voters would've been turned off.

I think Turturro was good, but I'm glad Scofield got the nomination, if only for the way he plays the scene where Ralph Fiennes tells him he'd cheated on the show. The whole performance is terrific--the kind of generous supporting work that's too rare in a lot of movies--but that one scene ("Your name is mine") definitely sets him apart from...everyone except Martin Landau in his category.