In Contention

Tag: Driving Miss Daisy

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1989 and 1990

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    We’re almost out of the god-awful 1980’s and into the decade where I came of age. I will say that 1989 brings my very first actual going-to-the-cinema memory, which was seeing “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” I may have gone to the movies before then, but whatever I saw wasn’t that memorable.

    As for the Oscars, “Driving Miss Daisy” won Best Picture in one of the more head-scratching results in recent memory. It’s been a trivia note ever since as the last time a film won the big prize without a Best Director nomination to back it up and it’s unlikely that the feat will be repeated any time soon.

    1990 is another frustrating year for movie nerds as Kevin Costner emerged triumphant with “Dances With Wolves” over Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.” More notable is the outright snub of “T-U-R-T-L-E Power” in the Best Original Song race. Academy Award nominee Partners in Kryme, anyone?

    Billy Crystal presided over both ceremonies, his first of eight critically beloved times at the helm.

    So what did the Academy completely ignore?

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  • Looking back on Oscar’s Old Left leanings

    Its installments come all too infrequently these days, but Best Pictures From The Outside In — a collaborative project between The Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers and his learned pals — is one of the best sources of Oscar discussion and analysis on the web.

    That’s not only because it provides ample opportunity for kvetching over the Academy’s past mistakes (our favorite sport, let’s face it), but because its system of pairing up Best Picture champs from opposite ends of history often reveals unexpected patterns of progression (or not, in some cases) among the voters.

    Their latest episode is a doozy on both counts, covering as it does one of the most roundly jeered winners in the category’s history, 1989’s thoroughly vanilla race-relations drama “Driving Miss Daisy.” (By contrast, the other featured champ, 1946’s “The Best Years of Our Lives,” holds up to this day.)

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  • THE LONG SHOT: Minority report

    PreciousWhen the Academy Awards roll around in March, it will have been precisely two decades since the unlikely figure of Kim Basinger blasted Academy voters’ conservatism on air at the 1989 ceremony, with specific regard to their sidelining of “Do the Right Thing,” Spike Lee’s groundbreaking study of urban interracial tension.

    “We’ve got five great films here, and they’re great for one reason – they tell the truth,” the star opined before presenting a clip from one of that year’s Best Picture nominees. “But there is one film missing from this list that deserves to be on it because, ironically, it might tell the biggest truth of all.”

    As if in response, later that evening, the Academy handed their top prize to “Driving Miss Daisy,” as quiet and uncontroversial a portrait of the American racial divide as you could ask for. Let it never be said that the Oscars have no sense of irony.

    20 years on, much has changed. (Basinger has become an Oscar-winning actress, for starters. No one saw that coming.) More to the point, the amount of black Oscar winners in acting categories has trebled. And just two years after Basinger’s outburst, the Academy named 23 year-old John Singleton their first black Best Director nominee.

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  • Oscar might go for “Button”

    Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonThere is no good reason for me to think this, of course.  Call it a gut feeling, but I have a sneaking feeling the Academy might ignore “Slumdog Millionaire,” despite its countless awards, and go for homegrown studio product this year.  Let’s face it, the Academy has proven they march to their own drummer over and over again.

    “Slumdog” has already become a pop culture phenomenon around North America and Britain, making far more money than the filmmakers ever thought it would. Hell, before the festival season started the film was doomed, set for direct-to-DVD distribution.  Yes, Danny Boyle has won the DGA award, a solid predictor, but I’m not convinced.  Hollywood loves to congratulate itself, which we saw in 1997 with “Titanic” somehow winning a record 11 awards over the vastly superior “L.A. Confidential.”  David Fincher’s “Button” has been around for years, waiting for the right director, the right effects, the right time.

    So often in the past the Academy has gone for a film that is conservative and offends no one, ignoring the better work.”Driving Miss Daisy” over “Do the Right Thing” (which wasn’t even nominated), “Gandhi” over “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Oliver!” over “2001:A Space Odyssey.”  The list goes on and on.  “Button” is a handsomely mounted project, beautifully shot, meticulously crafted, with strong performances from the cast,and rock solid direction from Fincher.

    “Slumdog” may well prevail, but as a devil’s advocate, I am throwing it out there that “Button” could surprise, taking wins for both Best Picture and Best Director.  Am I crazy?