Who here has consumed edible gold? Was it even tasty? Did the experience have any redeeming qualities besides the fleeting assurance that yes, you are wealthy? The question is relevant because Colbert did a $3,000 dine-and-dash on last night's Report, and his final stop was NYC's Serendipity for the Golden Opulence Sundae. Press play below.
A thousand-dollar shaved lobster and caviar pizza is stupid, but fine, because that is FOOD. Edible gold is almost as useless as these gold pills that make your poop glitter or Lindsay Bluth's diamond powder cream from Arrested Development. Just down a bottle of Goldschlager for dessert and call it a night.
Did Shakespeare in Love cheat Saving Private Ryan out of a Best Picture Oscar? Did Tommy Lee Jones deserve to triumph over Ralph Fiennes in the 1993 Best Supporting Actor race? Should Renee Zellweger hand in her Best Supporting Actress award?
We're not seriously asking anyone to turn over his or her statue, but what Oscar aficionado hasn't thought at some point that the Academy got it all wrong? That's why EW launched its "Recall the Gold" project, a ballot survey asking more than 7,000 film industry members to re-vote on the major Oscar races from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago. Like wine, some films age better than others, and a movie or performance that people considered provocative or relevant two decades ago may now seem trite or outdated. We wondered whether the same Hollywood professionals who annually vote for the Oscars would affirm past winners, or would they choose someone else? Those survey results have been tabulated and will be revealed in the Entertainment Weekly issue hitting newsstands on Jan. 9.
But, PopWatchers, we also wanted to know how you would vote if we gave you the same ballots. That's why we've been writing a series of "Recall the Gold" posts asking you to tell us who truly deserved Oscar glory. You can still vote in all of our 30 polls by visiting our Recall the Gold index, which contains brief recaps of each Oscar race and video clips to refresh your memory. But we have to close the polls Sunday night, so don't delay!
Looking back at all of our "Recall the Gold" posts, it’s no shock that the race that sparked the most comments was the 1998 Best Picture category, in which Shakespeare in Love defeated assumed-favorite Saving Private Ryan. Yet, it's also intriguing to see what contests have generated the least comments: the 1983 Best Actor race, where Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies) beat Michael Caine (Educating Rita) and Albert Finney (The Dresser); the 1988 Best Director race, where Barry Levinson (Rain Man) won over Mike Nichols (Working Girl) and Martin Scorsese (The Last Temptation of Christ); the 1988 Best Actress race in which Jodie Foster (The Accused) received her first Oscar by fending off Glenn Close (Dangerous Liaisons) and Sigourney Weaver (Gorillas in the Mist); and, surprisingly, the 1998 Best Director race, where Steven Spielberg won his second directing Oscar only to see Ryan lose the top prize a few minutes later.
So go ahead and take another look at those contests, as well as all the other races, and don't be shy about sharing your feelings on our "Recall the Gold" project. Regardless of whether you think this initiative is a good idea, we believe you're going to be quite fascinated by the final tallies.
And the (new) winners are....
Just try to recall the four Best Supporting Actor nominees who lost to Tim Robbins at the 2003 Academy Awards. If you can't, your memory isn't entirely at fault. It's not that the other actors didn't deliver quality performances — far from it. Rather, they had to go up against the 6'4" Robbins, who was such a favorite to win the gold that the other nominees should have skipped the show and headed straight to the after parties. Robbins turned in a mighty fine performance in Mystic River as Dave Boyle, a depressing blank of a man haunted by memories of being molested as a child. Robbins managed to make Boyle both sympathetic and condemnable; our hearts ached for him and all the suffering he endured, and yet wasn't it about time left his troubled past behind and got on with his life?
But voters weren't about to leave Robbins behind, who gave him his first Oscar (he had previously been nominated for directing Dead Man Walking). The question we're asking you is did Robbins deserve the award over fellow nominees Alec Baldwin (The Cooler), Djimon Hounsou (In America), Benicio Del Toro (21 Grams), and Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai)? We've been asking the entertainment industry the same question in our Recall the Gold survey of all the major Oscars from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, and now, PopWatchers, we want to know what you think.
Baldwin's performance as Shelly Kaplow, a suave yet sociopathic Vegas casino boss, was one of the year's most delightful surprises. The nomination, Baldwin's first, signaled a career rejuvenation that led to prominent roles in The Aviator, The Departed, and 30 Rock. But Kaplow is a completely villainous dude, and Oscar voters tend to shy away from characters they wouldn’t want to have over for a tea party. Also in the derby was Hounsou, whose dynamic presence as the AIDS-afflicted neighbor of an Irish immigrant family provided In America its poignant impact. Yet after movies such as The Green Mile, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and The Family Man, voters may have grown weary of "magical black men" roles.
Del Toro was as fiery and fascinating as ever as Jack Jordan, an ex-con whose entire life is shattered when he accidentally kills two people in a hit-and-run accident. However, Del Toro had won the Supporting Actor Oscar just three years prior for Traffic. The Academy wasn't about to honor him again so soon, and especially not for the melancholic 21 Grams, which had just as many detractors as supporters. Finally, The Last Samurai was Japanese actor Watanabe's English-language debut. As the contemplative warrior, Katsumoto, Watanabe managed to continually steal the spotlight from Tom Cruise. But Watanabe may have been too unknown to garner enough support.
So, PopWatchers, take out your Oscar pens and tell us whom you thought should have won in our poll below. If you need a reminder of each performance, check out clips from each film after the jump. While you're at it, if you haven't already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar's memory lane. Tomorrow, we'll recap our Recall the Gold surveys and give you one last chance to vote. Also, you can check out coverage of this year’s awards contenders in Dave Karger's Oscar Watch blog.
Everyone loves a comeback, and Hollywood is no different. Although Jodie Foster had worked steadily since her first Oscar nomination, at 14 for 1976's Taxi Driver, by the time she starred in 1988's The Accused, her career had become a string of roles in which reviewers often lamented how good she was with how little she was given. But as a gang rape victim who fights with an assistant D.A. (Kelly McGillis) to prosecute the men who egged her rapists on, Foster finally had a role that was equal to her talents, and she delivered a performance that lived up to her potential. Academy voters rewarded her with her first Oscar for Best Actress.
It wasn't necessarily an obvious victory. Fellow nominees Glenn Close (Dangerous Liasons) and Sigourney Weaver (Gorillas in the Mist) had also more than paid their dues, so to speak, and each had given standout performances — though as two very different women. Five-time nominee Close just about devours the screen as a conniving French aristocrat, while Weaver settles into a comfortable naturalism as the real-life zoologist Dian Fossey. It was a strong year for Weaver, in fact; she was also nominated for her supporting role in Working Girl alongside fellow Best Actress nominee Melanie Griffith, who turned in a Golden Globe-winning, love-it-or-hate-it performance as a striving secretary who connives her way into Weaver's corner office. (The "hate it" contingent generally found Griffiths' breathy, Marilyn Monroe-esque voice like nails on a chalkboard.) Ironically, the only Best Actress nominee pretty much guaranteed not to beat out Foster for the prize was Meryl Streep. Though fearlessly unlikable in A Cry in the Dark as the real life Australian mother accused of murdering the baby she steadfastly claimed was abducted by a wild dingo, Streep had also become something of an Oscar perennial in the 1980s: This was her sixth nomination in eight years.
But after 20 years, all that context — Is it "her time"? Did she recently win? Do we expect to nominate her again? — has melted away, and just the performances themselves remain. Does Foster still deserve her Academy Award? That's what we've asked Hollywood in EW's Recall the Gold survey revisiting all the major Oscar categories from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, and that's also what we've been asking you, PopWatchers, over the last few months. So vote in our poll below. If you need a reminder of each performance, check out clips from each film after the jump. While you're at it, if you haven't already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar's memory lane. Tomorrow, in the final category (!) of our 13 week survey (!!!), we'll examine the 2003 Best Supporting Actor race, and you can check out coverage of this year's awards contenders in Dave Karger's Oscar Watch blog.
Over the past few months, we've been revisiting all the major Academy Awards from 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years ago in our Recall the Gold survey, asking the entertainment industry and EW.com readers to decide whether the winners in the top categories are still Oscar worthy after several years of percolating within popular culture. With just three more categories to go, we've finally reached the winner whose Oscar would seem by far the safest: The 1993 Best Picture, Schindler's List. Director Steven Spielberg's haunting and harrowing portrait of the Holocaust often felt as if it was a document rather than a narrative; it feels just as alive and terribly vital today as it did 15 years ago. Asking whether it still deserves its Oscar feels somehow a little wrong and a lot beside the point.
And yet there are those who contend, now and in 1993, that Schindler's List is a flawed film, that Spielberg indulged in some overly sentimental tropes — the girl in the red coat; Oskar Schindler's "I could have done more" speech — as if he couldn't bear to fully face such an uncompromisingly brutal period in history. The other four Best Picture nominees from that year, meanwhile, were worthy films in their own right. The Fugitive may seem now like the One That Doesn't Quite Belong, but in truth, it was really just a dying breed: A contemporary, audience-pleasing, near-perfectly executed Hollywood thriller that also happened to earn a Best Picture nod. In the Name of the Father was a blistering look at the true story of a group of working class Irishmen falsely imprisoned for an IRA bombing. The Piano, a tale about a mute Scotswoman (Holly Hunter) and her young daughter (Anna Paquin) who move to New Zealand for an arranged marriage, felt like a living novel, winning raves, and Oscars, for Hunter, Paquin, and writer-director Jane Campion. (Only the second-ever female Best Director nominee, Campion won for her original screenplay.) And The Remains of the Day, about the life of a buttoned-up butler (Anthony Hopkins) in post-WWI Britain, was yet another impeccable Merchant Ivory literary adaptation (Howards End, A Room With a View) that have since fallen out of favor with the Academy.
These four films lost for one reason: They weren't Schindler's List. The quibbles over Spielberg's softer side were not nearly enough to keep the film from taking home seven Oscars (including Spielberg's first as a director), including, of course, Best Picture. And now, PopWatchers, it's your turn to decide whether, with the benefit of time, that Oscar is still as deserved today as it was in 1993, or should go instead to one of the other nominees. Vote in our poll below; if you need a reminder of the films, check out the clips after the jump. (Some are NSFW.) While you're at it, if you haven't already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar's memory lane. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the 1988 Best Actress race; also, check out coverage of this year's awards contenders in Dave Karger's Oscar Watch blog.
Judi Dench's roughly eight minute performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love was not the briefest to ever win an Academy Award; that record is still held by Beatrice Straight at six minutes for 1976's Network. But it's still pretty friggin' short -- and pretty friggin' memorable. Dench's droll, deftly understated take on the monarch sets much of the film's plot in motion, gives its theatrical climax a pungent grace note, and steals every square inch of the screen for every precious second she's on it. And yet, when Dame Judi collected her Oscar for the performance, even she felt obliged to note, while regarding her statue, "I feel for eight minutes on the screen, I should only get a little bit of him."
Should she have gotten any of him? We've been looking back at all the major Oscar categories from 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years ago and asking just that question in our Recall the Gold survey of the entertainment industry. For a decade, the performances of these five best supporting actress nominees — including Kathy Bates (Primary Colors), Brenda Blethyn (Little Voice), Rachel Griffiths (Hilary and Jackie), and Lynn Redgrave (Gods and Monsters) — have percolated in the popular culture, and now we want to know if you, PopWatchers, think Dench's still rates as the most Oscar-worthy.
Ten years ago, her win wasn't a sure thing. Redgrave had won the Golden Globe for her role as the hilariously no-nonsense maid to Bride of Frankenstein director James Whale (fellow nominee Ian McKellan). Bates had taken home the Screen Actors Guild award for her role as a hilariously take-no-prisoners political operative. Both were far more traditional supporting performances (i.e. they we're a fair shade longer than eight minutes). Bates' movie, however, was otherwise seen as a disappointment, and it was released way back in March 1998 — rarely an Oscar-friendly month. As for Redgrave, perhaps some voters thought Gods and Monsters should be recognized by McKellan's performance instead (er, whoops), or by screenwriter Bill Condon's win for best adapted screenplay.
Blethyn and Griffiths were caught in a different bind: They arguably gave lead performances against a fellow actress with a far showier role. Blethyn tore into the chance to play an oft-sozzled stage mom to Jane Horrocks' meek title character; the movie, however, was specifically created to show off Horrocks' jaw-dropping impersonations of legendary Hollywood singers (Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland), and Blethyn's over-the-top scenery chewing may have turned off voters besides. (The film, alas, has also lived up to its title: I can't even find the trailer on the Web.) Meanwhile, much of Hilary and Jackie, a biopic about sisters and musical rivals Hilary and Jacqueline du Pré, is told from Griffiths' perspective as the older, more ordinary sister Hilary...who is overshadowed by her brilliant, egomaniacal younger sister Jackie, played by (ahem) Best Actress nominee Emily Watson. Though the Griffiths stunning work in the film launched quite the healthy career (HBO's Six Feet Under, ABC's Brothers & Sisters), she was, at the time, the designated "now who is she again?" nominee.
So, PopWatchers, is there still, in the inimitable words of presenter Robin Williams, nothing like a Dame? Or should another actress have be anointed with Oscar gold? Vote in our poll below; if you need a reminder of the performances, check out the clips after the jump. While you're at it, if you haven't already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar's memory lane. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the 1993 Best Picture race; also, check out coverage of this year's awards contenders in Dave Karger's Oscar Watch blog.
When you look at the rest of the field for Best Actor at the 1983 Academy Awards, Robert Duvall's win -- for his performance as an alcoholic ne'er-do-well
country singer in Tender Mercies -- makes a certain kind of sense. Duvall was the only American among four British actors: Michael Caine (Educating Rita), Tom Conti (Reuben, Reuben), Tom Courtenay (The Dresser) and Albert Finney (The Dresser). More significantly, his role was the only one that was created specifically for the screen; all the others originally came from stage plays. When you add in Duvall's longstanding goodwill within Hollywood, the (well-earned) belief that he was among his generation's finest working actors, and the fact that he also took home Golden Globe, LA Film Critics and New York Critics Circle awards for his performance, his Oscar that year seemed pretty much foreordained.
But did Duvall deserve it? That's what we've been asking Hollywood in EW's Recall the Gold survey revisiting all the major Oscar categories from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, and that's also what we've been asking you, PopWatchers, over the last few months. So what do you think? The contrast between Duvall and his fellow nominees is so stark, you can pretty much say exactly the same thing about why the other four men didn't win: Their performances all felt too small and stage-y, and none of them were Robert Duvall. If any actor had even a small chance at an upset, it was probably Caine as a crappy, alcoholic professor who helps a working-class woman (fellow nominee Julie Walters) earn a degree. His career was just as storied as Duvall's, but it was also peppered with far more dubious choices (Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, anyone?), and the Academy may have figured he'd have many more chances to take home an Oscar. (Indeed, to date, Caine has two Oscars to Duvall's one.) Finney and Courtenay, as respectively an overbearing, alcoholic Shakespearean actor and his costumer/manservant/confidante, effectively canceled each other out. And Conti's performance as an alcoholic (noting a pattern?) Scottish poet who sleeps his way through New England's universities was apparently one of those tour-de-force turns with a short pop-culture half-life: Though Conti took home the National Board of Review's award for Best Actor that year, there isn't even a whisper of a clip from the film to be found on the internets.
The Academy had its say back in 1983, but now its your turn, PopWatchers: Which actor deserved the golden statue? We've got reminders from some of the films after the jump if you need them; while you're at it, if you haven't already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar’s memory lane. Next week, we'll look at the 1998 race for Best Supporting Actress, and you can check out coverage of this year’s awards contenders in Dave Karger’s Oscar Watch blog.
When 11-year-old Anna Paquin won Best Supporting Actress at the 1993 Academy Awards, she became the category's second youngest winner (only Tatum O'Neal was younger, at 10). Paquin hesitantly stepped onto the stage and, in true oh-my-gosh-I-just-won-an-Oscar fashion, was speechless for 20 seconds. Then, after thanking a few individuals, the preteen promptly skipped down the stairs and returned to her seat, leaving presenter Gene Hackman with no one to take backstage.
It all made for a precious Oscar moment, but did Paquin truly deserve the Oscar for her performance as Holly Hunter's daughter in The Piano? It's especially tricky to gauge the true talent level of young actors in breakout performances: Are we witnessing one-trick pony material or the real thing? Paquin has since offered numerous examples of acting ability, and there's no doubting that she held her own against Hunter. But was she more worthy than fellow nominees Winona Ryder (The Age of Innocence), Rosie Perez (Fearless), Emma Thompson (In the Name of the Father), and — gulp — Holly Hunter herself (The Firm)? That's the question we've been asking the entertainment industry in our Recall the Gold survey of all the major Oscars from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, and now, PopWatchers, it's your turn to have a say.
Ryder was the odds-on favorite going into the ceremony. Her introverted turn as Daniel Day-Lewis's wife-to-be in 19th-century New York won her a Golden Globe and her first Oscar nomination. Yet the leisurely pace of Innocence may have put off some voters, and Ryder's character didn't capture people's hearts in the way that Paquin's did. Rosie Perez was also a strong contender for dialing down her "Fight the Power" intensity to play a mother who loses her baby in a plane crash. But Fearless was a box-office flop. Also in the derby were Thompson and Hunter, but they were considered longshots. Thompson had a small but memorable part in In the Name of the Father as Gareth Peirce, the real-life British lawyer who fought to clear the names of the Guildford Four. However, voters were probably suffering from Emma Thompson fatigue -- she was also up for her leading performance in The Remains of the Day and had just won Best Actress the previous year for Howards End. As for Hunter, she was practically assured to win the Best Actress Oscar for The Piano, so voters had little incentive to also award her snazzy but less striking performance as a secretary in The Firm.
So, PopWatchers, take out your Oscar pens and tell us whom you thought should have won in our poll below. If you need a reminder of each performance, check out clips from each film after the jump. While you're at it, if you haven't already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar's memory lane. Tomorrow, we'll examine the 1983 Best Actor race, and you can check out coverage of this year's awards contenders in Dave Karger's Oscar Watch blog.
From the moment that Saving Private Ryan was released in July of 1998, Steven Spielberg was the favorite to win that year's Best Director Oscar. Ryan scored that rare combination: Not only was the film popping up all over critics' Top 10 lists, but it was also 1998's box-office king, raking in $216.5 million domestically. Spielberg's direction was no doubt integral to the film's success. Ask anyone about Ryan, and you're bound to hear about the sheer visceral power of its D-Day battle scene and the heart-wrenching impact of the film's coda.
But despite the popularity of Spielberg's win, since we've been revisiting all the major Oscar categories from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago in our Recall the Gold survey of entertainment industry players and EW readers, we have to ask the question: Were fellow nominees John Madden (Shakespeare in Love), Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line), Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful), and Peter Weir (The Truman Show) just as worthy to take home the golden statue?
Madden accomplished the tricky balancing act of making surprise Best Picture winner Shakespeare in Love both a sexy historical romance and a droll comedy. But many voters probably dug the film's astute writing more than its direction (the script by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard won Best Original Screenplay). Then there was Terrence Malick, the reclusive director who made Badlands and Days of Heaven in the 1970s, and then disappeared from filmmaking for 20 years until 1998's mesmerizing The Thin Red Line. However, for every person who thought the film was a philosophical masterwork, there was another who considered it an indulgent bore — buttered popcorn doesn't sit very well with three hours of narration about the destructive nature of mankind.
Whether or not Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful went well with artery-clogging snacks also depended on whom you talked to. For numerous voters, the WWII drama was a charming and compassionate testament to a father's love for his son; others accused Benigni of trivializing the Holocaust. Plus, the Academy had the option of honoring Benigni in the Best Actor category, which they did instead. As for Weir, the director deserves credit for capturing a surprisingly multifaceted performance from Jim Carrey, an actor who up until that point was most admired for his ability to contort his body as if it were Silly Putty. Weir also crafted a science-fiction parable with arresting imagery and prophetic cultural relevance (the film forecasted America's infatuation with reality TV). But The Truman Show failed to secure a Best Picture nomination, and no director since 1930 has been able to win a directing Oscar without his or her film also contending for the top prize.
So, PopWatchers, take out your Oscar pens and tell us which director you thought should have won in our poll below. If you need a reminder of each film, check out the clips after the jump. While you’re at it, if you haven’t already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar’s memory lane. Tomorrow, we’ll examine the 1993 Best Supporting Actress race, and you can check out coverage of this year’s awards contenders in Dave Karger’s Oscar Watch blog.
Take a moment to contemplate just how improbable a movie like Terms of Endearment would be in 2008. After this slice-of-life drama — following a strong-willed mother (Shirley MacLaine) and her equally strong-willed daughter (Debra Winger) through many years of their lives — premiered on Nov. 23, 1983, it shot to the top of the box office, becoming the second-highest-grossing movie of the year, behind only Return of the Jedi. Then it snagged 11 Oscar nominations and won Best Picture (as well as Best Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor, Actress, and
Director). Mind you, this was an adult drama, about relationships, from the female leads' point-of-view. They really just don't make 'em like this anymore: A human-scaled, contemporary drama about real people living quietly dramatic lives. If it had been released this year, it might've been seen as a Sundance find that gets a minor platform release, or, even worse, it could've been dismissed out of hand as just a treacly chick flick. It certainly wouldn't have been expected to become a commercial and awards-season juggernaut.
So should Terms of Endearment win 1983's Best Picture today? Or is one of the other nominees — The Big Chill, The Dresser, The Right Stuff or Tender Mercies — more deserving of Oscar's top prize? That's what we've been asking the entertainment industry in our Recall the Gold survey of all the major Oscars from 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, and now, PopWatchers, we're asking you to share your voice.
Back in 1983, The Right Stuff was probably the film with the best chance of stealing Terms of Endearment's crown. Focusing on the birth of America's space program, it was the kind of sweeping epic the Academy typically loves loading up with Oscars. And, indeed, it did have eight nominations to its name — just not one for director Philip Kaufman, and a movie almost never wins Best Picture if its director isn't also a nominee. Tender Mercies might have also had a good shot, but most of the heat for that film was focused on star Robert Duvall for his finely honed, and ultimately Oscar-winning, performance as a down-and-out country singer. (We'll get to that category, actually, later this week.) It's telling that barely anyone remembers The Dresser, a backstage portrait of an overbearing Shakespearean actor (Albert Finney) and his "dresser," aka personal assistant, played by Tom Courtenay — in fact, we couldn't find any clips from the film online. And while The Big Chill certainly has stood the test of time as a touchstone film about a group of Baby Boomers coming together after a friend commits suicide, it only had two other nominations that year (neither for director Lawrence Kasdan), indicating shallow support from Academy voters.
So, PopWatchers, are you still endeared to Terms of Endearment? Or is another film a better Best Picture? Vote in our poll below; if you need a reminder of each film, check out clips after the jump. While you're at it, if you haven't already, vote in all the other polls from our ongoing walk down Oscar's memory lane. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the 1998 Best Director race, and then wrap up the Recall the Gold initiative with additional polls on Dec. 24, 25, 29, 30, and 31, and Jan. 1; also, check out coverage of this year's awards contenders in Dave Karger's Oscar Watch blog.
