Lifeless Poets Society
Driving Miss Daisy is a high-quality character research with actually nice central performances by Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, so it’s not shocking that it picked up the Oscar for Finest Image in 1990. Nonetheless, some really feel its tackle race relations – specializing in friendship slightly than systemic injustice – has dated fairly a bit, particularly since Spike Lee’s Do the Proper Factor did not even decide up a nomination in the identical 12 months. Curiously, when Oscar voters have been polled by THR in 2015, they stated they’d select My Left Foot as a substitute ofDriving Miss Daisy, however we now have to offer a shout-out to a completely totally different loser: Lifeless Poets Society.
If its continued rediscovery throughout new generations has taught us something, it’s that Peter Weir’s coming-of-age drama faucets into one thing timeless. It’s about that one second when somebody lastly makes you are feeling seen, pushing you to be courageous sufficient to assume for your self. Its themes nonetheless resonate with younger folks navigating expectations from all sides, and its “carpe diem” ethos has legit change into cultural shorthand. Arguably, Lifeless Poets Society would have endured as a Finest Image winner as a result of discovering your voice by no means actually goes out of favor.
Goodfellas
1991’s Finest Image nominees are all fairly strong. Ghost, Awakenings, The Godfather Half III …Christ, okay, not that one, however the others! All strong. The winner that 12 months, Dances with Wolves, can be a good flick. James Cameron should have thought so at the very least; he’s already remade it 3 times, ayooooo.
Ahem, anyway, regardless of the overall solidness of Kevin Costner’s directorial debut, it’s nonetheless a bit shocking that Goodfellas didn’t take the statue that 12 months, isn’t it? I imply, in fact Academy voters have been gonna go for the wolf man over Joe Pesci saying “fuck” 300 instances; it makes good sense, however Goodfellas is a stone-cold traditional. Scorsese’s film fully redefined the gangster film, for crying out loud. The kinetic digicam work, the legendary Copacabana monitoring shot, the wall-to-wall needle drops – it’s all nonetheless influencing filmmakers. Do you assume the solid-gold anxiousness cinema of Marty Supreme can be hitting the identical approach immediately if Goodfellas hadn’t set the blueprint in its last stretch? Ehh, properly, at the very least Scorsese received the lengthy sport right here. Trendy crime storytelling simply wouldn’t be the identical with out this one.
JFK
That is robust as a result of the 1992 winner was The Silence of the Lambs, one of many biggest horror motion pictures of all time. It’s a sensible choice for Finest Image, and it’s so uncommon that the horror style will get its due on the Oscars! I can’t be mad about that. However what if there might have been two Finest Image winners from that 12 months’s lineup? Nicely, JFK would in all probability be the opposite one.
Admittedly, it could have endured as a controversial alternative. Although daring and provocative, Oliver Stone’s political conspiracy thriller appears to be like again on the occasions surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy with a mixture of reality and fiction that has infuriated loads of historians and critics. Nonetheless, JFK stays a captivating exploration of a pivotal second in American historical past that enraptures viewers even because it performs with the thought of presenting unverified claims as the reality. In some ways, it was an ominous portent of what was to return.
