Awards presented March 24, 1986
The nominees were ...
... when they should have been ...
And the Oscar went to ...
Out of Africa. In addition to best picture and best director (Sydney Pollack), Out of Africa also won for Kurt Luedtke's screenplay, David Watkin's cinematography, and John Barry's score. But as intelligently written and visually and aurally beautiful as it is, it feels empty and fake. Meryl Streep acts her ass off, but she can't make us forget that she's "doing one of her accents," while her co-star, Robert Redford, isn't even trying to be the very British Denys Finch-Hatton. Their performances don't mesh, and consequently the film seems hollow, a succession of pretty pictures set to stirring music.
... when it should have gone to ...
Perhaps the most celebrated TV series of all time, The Sopranos, is the offspring of The Godfather and Prizzi's Honor, the marriage of tragedy and farce. This product of director John Huston's wintry renaissance (he was 79 years old when it was released) made him the only person to have directed both his father, Walter Huston, and his daughter, Anjelica Huston, to acting Oscars. It also earned nominations for Jack Nicholson and William Hickey, who, as an octogenarian Mafia don, must surely have come in contact with Livia Soprano and Uncle Junior at some time in his life. But the Academy overlooked Kathleen Turner's seductive hit-woman, who plays beautifully opposite Nicholson's slightly befuddled fellow assassin, who is torn between kissing her and killing her.
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