The Oscars 1997
Did They Get It Right?
The films nominated this year were: As Good As It Gets; The Full Monty; Good Will Hunting; L.A. Confidential; and Titanic. Titanic won and looking back I don’t know how they made such a bad decision.
Good Will Hunting, As Good As It Gets and L.A. Confidential were all better. Not only that but we saw some of the best performances from some of the greats of the time in these other films.
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed, Don’t Look Up) was good but he wasn’t the great actor that he was to become yet.
My ratings for the films (out of ten) are: As Good As It Gets (8); The Full Monty (5); Good Will Hunting (9); L.A. Confidential (8); and Titanic (6).
Good Will Hunting (Aladdin, Death To Smoochy) gave us Robin Williams in an iconic role that echoed some other roles we would see him in throughout his career. There was some Dead Poet’s Society here but more than the mentor and father figure he was to the boys in that masterpiece.
Here we see him and Matt bounce off each other as equals. Matt has a brilliant mind and has a chance to escape the slums with his genius in this would-be rags-to-riches story. Both performances are great.
The supporting cast is also fantastic: Ben Affleck (Chasing Amy, Gone Girl) & Stellan Skarsgard. Robin went on to win Best Supporting Actor for this role.
The film also won Best Screenplay Direct for the screen (written by the writing duo Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). This would have been my choice.
Titanic was a great story but we all kind of knew it before we saw it. The joke at the time was: I’ll spoil the ending – the boat sinks.
This was funny and not. Because that was exactly what the film was about. We all knew the ending so the question was: who is going to survive?
It also could have been: how will they survive? But we already knew that as well. This is the problem when you make a film about a known historical event.
Having said that the class struggle story that Leo and Kate’s characters look at was interesting. This would have been so much more so if we did not know that one or both of them were likely to die.
This took away from the story any cost that Kate may have to pay for her indiscretions with Leo’s character.
As Good As It Gets was as simple a story as possible. Jack Nicholson’s (Batman, The Departed) character is an eccentric writer with OCD. His relationship with the local waitress, played by Helen Hunt (Twister, Pay It Forward), understands him enough to allow him to eat breakfast every day.
Jack’s neighbour has an injury that requires Jack to look after his dog – which causes chaos for Jack’s character. Helen’s character has to quit her job to look after her son making Jack’s life even harder.
The performances from Helen and Jack won them Oscars for Best Actress and Actor which they both deserved.
L.A. Confidential brings us an all-star cast in a crime thriller. There is a murder case that has three detectives on it.
All three detectives have very different styles and motives and all provided us with very different insights into the case. The three detectives fill their roles well. Kevin Spacey (American Beauty, Se7en) gives us a cop eager for the accolades and the limelight.
Russell Crowe (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) plays a hard-hitting cop who will do anything to ensure the bad guys face justice. Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker, The Road) plays a by-the-book cop regardless of the outcome.
As a cop thriller, this is one of the best, a great adaptation with an excellent supporting cast.
My issue with the film is that there is just too much happening for us to interrogate effectively. This would make an excellent mini-series.
This cannot stand next to the other films here. While the underlying story of desperation in a declining England is poignant it has been done better elsewhere. Brassed Off with Pete Postelthwaite (The Last of the Mohicans, Romeo + Juliet) springs to mind.
Rather than being a serious look at what would have been a very depressing story the way out of their poverty is to become strippers. This is hilarious, especially given that none of them have any relevant experience.
At least that decision was right. This allows us to look at the individuals situations. The performances were fine but the material was just too jarring for them to do much with.
When you juxtapose the seriousness of unemployment and custody battles with male strippers who have almost zero attraction – apart from those typing amateur into the search engine – it becomes very difficult for the actors to deliver anything more than caricatures.
This is especially true when you have six characters. Some of the moments were moving but there just wasn’t enough for the cast to work with.
The film won a single Oscar for Best Music in a Musical or Comedy. Apart from this, it was a fantastic year at the Oscars.
