1984: Best Actress

This was the year Sally Field won her second Academy Award and made her (in)famous "You like me" speech:

The film in question was Places in the Heart, a Best Picture nominee that we have discussed at least thrice before, and one of just three rural-based films nominated in the Best Actress category. The others were The River, where Sissy Spacek cedes most of the narrative to Mel Gibson, and Country, a Jessica Lange vehicle - both films openly critical of then-current policies that saw the small-time farmer being pushed out of home and work, eagerly bought up by corporations and the banks. President Reagan even wrote about Country being propaganda, though all three take a look at government opportunism and the impact on communities, disaster relief, even other communities and occupations outside. 

The other nominees were Judy Davis (the only first-time nominee and only non-winner) from A Passage to India, another Best Picture nominee we've discussed before, and Vanessa Redgrave from The Bostonians, a Merchant-Ivory adaptation of Henry James' novel about turn-of-the-century feminists and the young woman who comes between two cousins (of opposite genders!), slow even by their standards. 

The nominees:

1992, Day Nine: Supporting Actress

If you've talked to anyone who was following the 1992 Oscar race, you will hear an oft-told urban legend about how Supporting Actress shook out. 

Basically, going into the Oscars, this was a three-woman race between Judy Davis (the ninth of sixteen actors nominated for a woody Allen film), Joan Plowright (never nominated veteran and widow of Laurence Olivier) and Miranda Richardson (the critics' darling). Looking back at Inside Oscar's account and contemporaneous sources, Richardson was the favorite, not just for delivering a killer monologue à la Network's Beatrice Straight, but for also having central roles in sleeper hits Enchanted April and The Crying Game. Smart money was on Davis or Richardson; I know one person who put money on Plowright; and of the two "surprise" nominees, Vanessa Redgrave would be the obvious spoiler pick.

No one saw it coming:

You can hear the screams! It's one of Oscar night's biggest shockers, and immediately gave rise to a number of theories. 

The most prevalent one purports that Jack Palance, that doddering old fool, read the wrong name. The Academy, not wanting to start the night by embarrassing an elder statesman of Hollywood, let it slide. That's not how the Oscars work, and if you think it does, then you somehow missed the time Moonlight won Best Picture while the La La Land producers were giving their acceptance speeches - there are measures put in place to prevent it, starting with the damn envelope. But you don't even need to get into the 2016 Oscars to see why the Palance theory doesn't work: just watch the clip! Having told the TelePrompTer to take a hike, less he be distracted, he takes his time reading the card, making sure he gets it right. People have also said he was going off of the memory of the last time he read aloud, but you're telling me Jack Palance isn't aware of Joan Plowright or Vanessa Redgrave?

Even those who accepted that it was the right name had a horrid little theory: it must be because Tomei was the only American nominated - Palance himself points this out before he reads the name - and in a xenophobic fit of solidarity, conferred the honor on her rather than these upstart Brits (well, and Aussie Davis). It's a bizarre theory that flies in the face of both the Academy's international membership ranks and its willingness to award the British. Hedda Hopper used to write op-eds about it. Redgrave herself was a previous winner! That very evening, Emma Thompson won Best Actress. That dog don't hunt.

Finally, there comes the "crotch vote" theory, which is very simple: the mostly male membership voted for Tomei because she was the most fuckable. She's the youngest nominee, undeniably beautiful, and while her character, Mona Lisa Vito, may have a smart mouth, she stands by her man...who just happen to be twice her age. She's not the cold ball-buster Davis plays, nor the cheated-upon housewife portrayed by Richardson, and she's certainly not Plowright or Redgrave.

The theories are not nice, and speak more to the gatekeeping of how we define "An Oscar Movie" than anything else, a gatekeeping that has made certain Oscar ceremonies seem more medicinal than celebratory. Still...if one actually takes the time to sit and watch the performances, did she deserve the win? 

Part Two: The 1980 Retro Hollmann Awards

The second and final day of the 1980 Retro Hollmann Awards. Can Raging Bull maintain its status as the most-winning flick of the year? Let's find out...

Best Makeup & Hairstyling  

The Elephant Man

Christopher Tucker, makeup creator/designer

Wally Schneiderman, makeup supervisor

Paula Gillespie / Stephanie Kaye, hairdressers

2. Popeye; 3. Raging Bull; 4. Altered States; 5. Kagemusha

It's easy to award the transformation of John Hurt into John Merrick for The Elephant Man. So I will!

In second place, intense forearms, unflattering hair buns, and other recreations of cartoon icons in Popeye. In third, blood, broken noses, and 15 years in Raging Bull. In fourth, primitive man and a mass of God knows what in Altered States. In fifth, blood, ghost-white faces, and salt-and-pepper doublng in Kagemusha.

Best Original Song, Best Actress, Best Picture, and more...after the jump.

Stage to Screen

P.S. If you have not yet checked out the awesome discussion on The Film Experience concerning dream casting August: Osage County, I highly suggest you do. Sissy Spacek, Judy Davis, and Grace Zabriskie get thrown into the mix for Violet, as well as Meryl (of course)...but for Mattie Fae!

This conversation was also had right here at the Silver Screening Room, and Nathaniel even gives a little shout-out (hee!).

Some ideas thrown out there are awesome, indeed. Kathleen Turner as Mattie Fae? Compare that to my choice of Julie Walters and you tell me what you'd rather see. I'm already regretting my not thinking of Mrs. Rabbit for that role.