Entertainment Weekly recalls Oscars from Zellweger, “Shakespeare in Love,” Coburn and more…
Since it’s Oscar season and any worthwhile publication knows to offer something more than just annual predictions (if they in fact know what’s good for them), Entertainment Weekly created the “Recall the Gold” project. Seemingly designed to stir up calls of “blasphemy!” and “damn straight!” in equal parts, the project involved sending out re-do ballots to a handful of actors, agents, directors, industry people, etc., asking them to offer up their picks for best acting, directing and picture awards for every fifth Oscar ceremony within the last 25 years.
Many awards were “graciously” re-awarded to those that had won them the first time around, but here’s a partial list of actors, directors and pictures that EW’s industry insiders decided should have had the award in the first place.
2003
Best Supporting Actress:
Actual Winner: Renee Zellweger, “Cold Mountain”
Recall Winner: Shohreh Agadashloo, “House of Sand and Fog”
1998
Best Picture:
Actual Winner: “Shakespeare in Love”
Recall Winner: “Saving Private Ryan”
Best Actor:
Actual Winner Roberto Benigni, “Life Is Beautiful”
Recall Winner: Edward Norton, “American History X”
Best Supporting Actor:
Actual Winner: James Coburn, “Affliction”
Recall Winner: Geoffrey Rush, “Shakespeare in Love”
Best Actress:
Actual Winner: Gwyneth Paltrow, “Shakespeare in Love”
Recall Winner: Cate Blanchett, “Elizabeth”
1993
Best Supporting Actor:
Actual Winner: Tommy Lee Jones, “The Fugitive”
Recall Winner: Ralph Fiennes, “Schindler’s List”
EW’s website has a slideshow with a complete run-down of recall’s results. We think the “Saving Private Ryan recall is a pretty dead on sentiment, especially given the exorbitant amount of hype “Shakespeare in Love” was receiving at the time (Oh Harvey, remember when you had that kind of juice?). If you’ve got an opinion on EW’s complete results (or just our truncated list), let us know and we’ll see if those choices extend beyond the magazine and their panel to the critical sphere.
Shakespeare in Love is so maddeningly inaccurate. Not only did he marry a brunette named Anne Hathaway– he was also rumored to have several male lovers. After five minutes, I was done.
Rush over Coburn…uh, no. And I’d go with Thin Red Line over Ryan, but that’s just me. Both are better than SiL.
Was that the same year? God, I love the Thin Red Line. That movie is poetry. They should release a real DVD already with all those crazy deleted scenes. John C. Riley (sic) and Adrian Brody had major parts in the film and then in the edited version they are practically nothing but cameos. That happened to a few actors i believe. I bet there must be a five hour version of that film somewhere.
The DVD that’s out is so bare bones. That would make a good Criterion.
And i agree Coburn is really good in that movie (it fucking depressed me to all hell), but to me it’s a little close to call.
Yea, I participated in some of these for awhile but then forgot about it. I did get to vote for The Thin Red Line for Best Pic though 🙂 Ryan definately isn’t better than that film imo but I expected it to win this. I totally agree with Ed Norton for Best Actor too. Glad to see that travesty brought to light.
Yeah, according to Wikipedia (luckily, this one is cited) Brody’s character was a lead and got cut out save for the couple of lines he has. Wiki also says that “Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke” all performed in the film but were cut. What an amazing cast. I’m not even sure a five hour cut could contain all this. Maybe one day we’ll get something that resembles the original cut.
Yeah, there you go. Amazing, right? Incredible cast. Man, i’d love to do a big feature on that one day.