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Post by dadsburgers on Oct 6, 2023 21:00:21 GMT
Beauty and the Beast Bugsy JFK The Prince of Tides The Silence of the Lambs
First animated nominee. One of the only horror nominees. A leftist conspiracy theory. Was there outrage from certain audiences? I could imagine people thinking this was the year Oscars went to shit, did it turn out controversial? Or on the other hand, how big was the party of viewers excited that the Academy seemed to be expanding their horizons?
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Post by JangoB on Oct 6, 2023 21:05:32 GMT
This is how it sounded during the announcement:
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wonky
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Post by wonky on Oct 9, 2023 3:06:05 GMT
The bigger controversy around SotL was the portrayal of Buffalo Bill
Inside Oscar also highlights Barbra Streisand's Director snub having a lot of media coverage and of course outcry from Spike Lee about Boyz n the Hood's BP snub and Jungle Fever getting nothing, but the main thing happening in 1991 was the ongoing AIDS crisis and LGBT representation. Different groups cited SotL and JFK as harmful and also Basic Instinct which was 1992 but released around the time of the ceremony so became part of the protests that took place at the red carpet. There was additional outcry over the snub of Paris is Burning in Documentary about NYC transvestite culture with the Doc chairman Sy Gomberg adding fuel to the fire by saying "Is this as important a subject as death on the job, or the conscience of the German officers? I don't think that drag queens can come anywhere near that in terms of importance."
I think there was mainly goodwill for Beauty and the Beast, people weren't so over Disney since it was part of their comeback/Renaissance. You can hear it in the nom announcement reaction, obviously. Katzenberg did a lot of campaigning to make people take it seriously. But Leonard Maltin said "Only in a year as mediocre as 1991 could this terrific film be nominated" and NY Daily News wrote "It's too bad it can't now give retroactive Oscars to the hundreds of Warner Bros. cartoons that are better than Beauty, an okay Disney film propelled by full-barrel Disney hype." Conservative, Christian etc audiences favored it on "family values" talking points (Michael Medved, critics like that). Of course it was extremely well-received in general.
Obviously with SotL there was also the violence but I think by the time of the ceremony, it was looking pretty good for it, even though BP was perceived as a fairly open race. Ebert predicted it saying "hundreds of people have mentioned it to me since it opened in February. They won't stop talking about it." Apparently there was a bizarre minor backlash when Demme won DGA as the only nominee broadcasting from New York and said "This will show them out there in La-La Land" and had to issue an apology?? Saying his words were "stupid" and "born of the hometown euphoric frenzy when a New Yorker actually gets the nod." I guess we've always been this sensitive.
And JFK had a lot of ~discourse~ from all sides lol but I think that maybe helped because it made everyone equally mad. Inside Oscar characterizes the earliest reviews as really bad but it started making 10 lists and it had box-office momentum, it was Ebert's #1 which was often influential, peak Oliver Stone relevance, and it was immediately generating actual legislative action as far as getting files released so it just became a hard movie to ignore however you felt about it.
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Post by pupdurcs on Oct 9, 2023 3:38:00 GMT
A poor line-up, which made The Silence Of The Lambs such an obvious winner. Bugsy and The Prince Of Tides did not need to be nominated, especially when alternatives that aged much better and recieved loads of acclaim (Boyz In The Hood, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Thelma & Louise) were right there. It wasn't an amazing year for movies, but you still could have had a legendary Best Picture line-up.
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Post by countjohn on Oct 9, 2023 5:41:17 GMT
There aren't many 1-2 punches in a year better than SotL and Beauty and the Beast. Bugsy is good too. JFK is paranoid delusional crap, albeit extremely well directed so it's still easy to see why it got in.
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Post by RiverleavesElmius on Oct 9, 2023 18:56:25 GMT
There aren't many 1-2 punches in a year better than SotL and Beauty and the Beast. Bugsy is good too. JFK is paranoid delusional crap, albeit extremely well directed so it's still easy to see why it got in. Are you one of those suckers who think Oswald acted alone?? Phhft! And JFK was a MASTERPIECE that should have run away with BP/BD. It wasn't just brilliantly directed, it was brilliantly EVERYTHING (acted, written, edited, cinematography, etc). It should have gotten THREE of the five S. Actor nods that year (Pesci and Oldman, in addition to TLJ), and Costner was robbed too (he was better than literally every nominee except Hopkins, who was in the WRONG CATEGORY anyway).
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Post by RiverleavesElmius on Oct 9, 2023 19:04:40 GMT
VERY weak year, but you replace the mediocre PoT with BOYZ N THE HOOD or THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE and you'd have EASILY one of the Top 3 BP line-ups of the decade. I have more movies from the 90's in my Top 100 than any other decade (30), but this was the only year where the Academy nominated 2 films that made my list (JFK is #33, SotL is #65).
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is a masterwork also. BUGSY isn't a great film, and yes there are at least 3 or 4 other films that deserved the nod more, but I'd still take it over 3 of the previous years BP nominees ("Ghost", "Godfather 3", and winner "Dances with Wolves"). Wonderful period gangster film with great supporting cast and GORGEOUS Cinematography/Production Design/Costumes.
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Post by countjohn on Oct 9, 2023 19:09:26 GMT
There aren't many 1-2 punches in a year better than SotL and Beauty and the Beast. Bugsy is good too. JFK is paranoid delusional crap, albeit extremely well directed so it's still easy to see why it got in. Are you one of those suckers who think Oswald acted alone?? Phhft! I think there was more likely than not a second shooter but there is no evidence of a larger conspiracy involving the CIA, right wing Cubans, or whoever else. The bulk of the scenes you see in the movie with the TLJ character and the guy in Miami are not real events and were outright made up by Stone. It should be considered a fictional film.
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Post by RiverleavesElmius on Oct 9, 2023 19:16:05 GMT
Are you one of those suckers who think Oswald acted alone?? Phhft! I think there was more likely than not a second shooter but there is no evidence of a larger conspiracy involving the CIA, right wing Cubans, or whoever else. The bulk of the scenes you see in the movie with the TLJ character and the guy in Miami are not real events and were outright made up by Stone. It should be considered a fictional film. I guess we have a different interpretation of the word "evidence", cuz I've seen PLENTY of evidence the CIA was involved. The scenes you mentioned might have been "made up", but there 100% was a conspiracy. And the Donald Sutherland character "X" was a man named Fletcher Prouty, and his "testimony" is VERY convincing.
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Post by wilcinema on Oct 12, 2023 10:47:28 GMT
Crazy that Ted Levine wasn't nominated but I figure they couldn't stomach nominating an actor playing a skinner.
I don't like Bugsy but it was the kind of Oscar movie they liked to nominate back then.
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Post by taranofprydain on May 21, 2024 18:20:46 GMT
The bigger controversy around SotL was the portrayal of Buffalo Bill Inside Oscar also highlights Barbra Streisand's Director snub having a lot of media coverage and of course outcry from Spike Lee about Boyz n the Hood's BP snub and Jungle Fever getting nothing, but the main thing happening in 1991 was the ongoing AIDS crisis and LGBT representation. Different groups cited SotL and JFK as harmful and also Basic Instinct which was 1992 but released around the time of the ceremony so became part of the protests that took place at the red carpet. There was additional outcry over the snub of Paris is Burning in Documentary about NYC transvestite culture with the Doc chairman Sy Gomberg adding fuel to the fire by saying "Is this as important a subject as death on the job, or the conscience of the German officers? I don't think that drag queens can come anywhere near that in terms of importance." I think there was mainly goodwill for Beauty and the Beast, people weren't so over Disney since it was part of their comeback/Renaissance. You can hear it in the nom announcement reaction, obviously. Katzenberg did a lot of campaigning to make people take it seriously. But Leonard Maltin said "Only in a year as mediocre as 1991 could this terrific film be nominated" and NY Daily News wrote "It's too bad it can't now give retroactive Oscars to the hundreds of Warner Bros. cartoons that are better than Beauty, an okay Disney film propelled by full-barrel Disney hype." Conservative, Christian etc audiences favored it on "family values" talking points (Michael Medved, critics like that). Of course it was extremely well-received in general. Obviously with SotL there was also the violence but I think by the time of the ceremony, it was looking pretty good for it, even though BP was perceived as a fairly open race. Ebert predicted it saying "hundreds of people have mentioned it to me since it opened in February. They won't stop talking about it." Apparently there was a bizarre minor backlash when Demme won DGA as the only nominee broadcasting from New York and said "This will show them out there in La-La Land" and had to issue an apology?? Saying his words were "stupid" and "born of the hometown euphoric frenzy when a New Yorker actually gets the nod." I guess we've always been this sensitive. And JFK had a lot of ~discourse~ from all sides lol but I think that maybe helped because it made everyone equally mad. Inside Oscar characterizes the earliest reviews as really bad but it started making 10 lists and it had box-office momentum, it was Ebert's #1 which was often influential, peak Oliver Stone relevance, and it was immediately generating actual legislative action as far as getting files released so it just became a hard movie to ignore however you felt about it. This is all true, but Disney burnt some bridges with Beauty and the Beast by giving out only 10 minute long highlight reels rather than to give the Academy members actual VHS screening copies. Bugsy had the biggest campaign of the year, but some at the time felt that the insistent campaign hurt the film's chances.
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Post by taranofprydain on May 21, 2024 18:21:57 GMT
And while 1991 was regarded as a weak year at the time, it looks damn good today. There are about 60 titles from that year that are marvelous.
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