by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
Welcome back to another Oscars: What If, our retrospective look at the Oscars!
As the summer blockbuster season wraps up and comes to a close, it’s time to transition to fall. It’s spooky season, people! Let’s dust off our horror classics. What are you most excited to rewatch? Halloween? A Nightmare on Elm Street? I’ve got to be honest, I’m already looking forward to rewatching Talk to Me, even though it just came out; it might have to become an annual rewatch. But horror movies can wait, we have would-be Oscars to talk about! As a reminder, with this series, we look at categories the Academy should be honoring, but, for one reason or another, they aren’t. Hopefully someday the Academy will do right by these creative talents, but until then we must do the Academy’s job for them. Let’s look back at the year federal agents laid siege upon the Branch Davidians religious cult of Waco, Texas, the world’s first Beanie Babies went on sale, terrorists bombed the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex, police began investigating Michael Jackson under suspicion of child abuse, and the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar was gunned down by police. It is time to examine the films of 1993, celebrated at the Oscars in 1994. Let’s see what could have been!
Best Stunts and Choreography
Given to the best achievement in dance, stunts, related performances, and overall choreography
And the nominees are… Cliffhanger, The Fugitive, Jurassic Park, Last Action Hero, Tombstone
And the winner is… Last Action Hero!
Yes, you read that correctly. Last Action Hero. Because the stunts are so much better than you remember. Yeah, Cliffhanger has some legitimately great free solo climbing scenes, The Fugitive has a Peter Pan dive, and Jurassic Park and Tombstone have some classic action antics. That’s all great stuff, but it’s not Last Action Hero. It has some car chases, and even a scene of chicken, that are genuinely stunning (and funny). Vehicles flip around and explosions take place on a regular basis. There are stunt people jumping off multiple rooftops and diving around in gunfights just as much as they’re diving away from swinging axes. But the most impressive sequence is when we have people jumping off a skyscraper, and other people hanging from cranes dozens of stories above the ground, swinging people through the air, and dropping people from the crane into a pool of water made to look like a giant tar pit. It’s an actually insane sequence of numerous high-risk stunts being chained together with the greatest of ease. So hats off to some fantastic stunt work and a very entertaining and underappreciated Schwarzenegger flick that more people should see.
Best Performance by Voiceover or Motion Capture
Given to the best off screen voice performance, or on screen motion captured performance
And the nominees are… Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Mark Hamill as The Joker in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Catherine O’Hara as Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ken Page as Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Chris Sarandon as Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas
And the winner is… Ken Page as Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas!
So am I being biased in giving this to one of my favorite St. Louis performers (who still does excellent stage work at local theaters to this day)? Maybe. But you know what, it’s my column, so it’s my rules. But also, Page absolutely does deserve this, because he provides one of the most energetic, distinct, and memorable vocal performances ever put to film. The passion he exudes is unmatched by anyone else in the cast, and that says a lot given that so many talented people are a part of it. But you can hear it in Page’s laughter. You can feel it in his charm and charisma. There is a joy and exuberance to this performance that takes it above and beyond the competition, and that’s before you even get into his amazing vocal performance in “Oogie Boogie’s Song,” easily one of the most beloved tracks in an entire soundtrack littered with beloved musical tracks. Putting my St. Louis bias aside, Page deserves this win. Taking my St. Louis bias into account, I couldn’t be any happier than to award this Oscar for Best Performance by Voiceover or Motion Picture to the one and only Ken Page.
Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast
Given to the best overall ensemble cast performance
And the nominees are… Dazed and Confused, The Piano, Much Ado About Nothing, Schindler’s List, True Romance
And the winner is… Schindler’s List!
Do you know how hard it was to trim down this nominees list to just five films? Do you have any clue? I mean… Short Cuts, Jurassic Park, The Age of Innocence, Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Fugitive, Philadelphia, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Tombstone, Menace II Society, and so many more don’t even make the cut?! This has genuinely been one of the hardest years for this category that I’ve ever come across, but that’s also what makes it fun! Yet as difficult as it was to whittle the nominees down to just five people, picking out the winner was a cinch. Schindler’s List is an astounding cinematic achievement, a breathtaking and heartbreaking exercise in film that is just as impressive as it is emotionally distressing. A big part of its success is its massive ensemble cast that perfectly melds and plays off one another to an almost disturbing degree. From the major leads in Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes alone, it’d be understandable to award this Oscar to this film. All three of these performances are arguably the high watermarks of careers which have spanned several decades. But it’s also the large cast of people stuffed into the ghettos, the trains, the concentration camps, and factories that shine a light on the atrocities of the Holocaust that deserve recognition. They drive all of the empathy and gut-wrenching heartache throughout this film, and they all deserve a piece of this Oscar for Best Ensemble for their parts in making this as tremendous as it is.
Best Directorial Debut
Given to the best achievement in direction by a debut directing talent
And the nominees are… Robert De Niro for A Bronx Tale, Guillermo del Toro for Cronos, Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes for Menace II Society, Henry Selick for The Nightmare Before Christmas, Steven Zaillian for Searching for Bobby Fischer
And the winner is… Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes for Menace II Society!
Well I waffled back and forth on this one. Not on the nominees this time, however, but in regards to the winner. There are very real arguments you could make for each one of these great flicks taking home the gold. But in this case I’m giving it to the Hughes Brothers, Albert and Allen. Like John Singleton two years earlier with Boyz n the Hood, The Hughes Brothers deliver a brutally honest portrait about the harshness of life in the Black communities of south-central Los Angeles. What makes this film so important and impactful is its visceral nature and unwavering, singular vision, All brought together in a concise 97 minutes, the camera work, performances, and thematic messaging couldn’t be tighter. It all comes together in a harrowing experience that still makes it one of the best films of ‘93, regardless of it being a directorial debut. But seeing as it is a directorial debut, I’m happy to give the Oscar to the Brothers Hughes.
Best Popular Film
Given to the best audience supported motion picture that earned a spot as one of the top 25 box office films of the year.
And the nominees are… The Fugitive, Jurassic Park, Mrs. Doubtfire, Schindler’s List, Sleepless in Seattle
And the winner is… Jurassic Park!
This. One. Hurts. How can one person make such decisions?! It’s too stressful! This is why we need a committee. No, an Academy! Full of people. Talented people in the industry that can come to a conclusion on a tough decision such as this. That way one random person like myself wouldn’t have to write such an article. Wait…
Without hyperbole, this was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in the history of this column, so we’ve really got to break this down. This was a Steven Spielberg race all the way, and it just came down to which picture would win out, but it was a trying decision. Why was this so hard? Because of two words: “Best” and “Popular.” “Best” implies the best quality. Obviously art is subjective, but the entire concept of the Oscars is to make subjective art as competitively objective as possible. Tough choices have to be made. “Popular” implies that people liked it. A lot of people. And that people went on to support the film at the box office and in other avenues. But together, as Best Popular Film, you have to try and find the greatest of both worlds. In this case there are two films that would rightfully win this category in any other year, but they just happen to be here, together, in the same year.
Jurassic Park became the highest grossing film of all time upon its release in ‘93. Let me say that again for people in the back. In ’93, there was no film in the history of all cinema that had made more money up to that time than Jurassic Park. It was a phenomenon. The movie grossed $357 million domestically. It made $557 million internationally, almost double the previous all time international record of $280 million. That’s a total of $914 million worldwide, or $1.94 billion adjusted by inflation for today’s 2023 dollars. All that, and this movie went on to spawn one of the biggest franchises in film history that has produced six theatrically released feature films in total spanning three decades. That franchise has since generated a whopping total of $6.08 billion dollars (unadjusted for inflation). Holy hell. To say this movie was/is popular is a massive understatement.
Schindler’s List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards in ‘94, making it the most nominated film of the evening. It went on to win seven Oscars, making it the best winning film of the evening as well. After bursting onto the Oscar scene with the Best Picture nominated Jaws in ‘75, and his first Best Director nomination for Close Encounters of the Third Kind in ‘78 (and five additional nominations since then), Spielberg finally earns his first Best Picture and Best Director Oscars here to boot. If that wasn’t enough, Schindler’s List also took home the gold for Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Film Editing, Cinematography, and Art Direction. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes were nominated, as well as the Makeup, Sound, and Costume Design. You want more? It also won Best Picture and Best Director at the BAFTAs and Golden Globes this year. Holy hell. To say this movie was/is one of the best is a massive understatement.
Of course, Schindler’s List also grossed a highly respectable $96 million domestically, and a worldwide total of $321 million, making it one of the most profitable and popular films of the year. This made it a Top 10 in both domestic and worldwide box office in ‘93. Incredibly impressive for a devastating epic that runs for nearly three and a half hours. Jurassic Park went a perfect three-for-three at the same Oscars Schindler’s List cleaned house, taking home gold for Best Sound (over Schindler’s List), Sound Effects Editing, and Visual Effects. In fact, Jurassic Park won the second most Oscars, only behind Schindler’s. It also won for Special Effects at the BAFTAs. Ultimately, both films have a legitimate case for Best Popular Film. Like I said earlier — in any other year, these rightfully win. In this instance, though, I’m going to go with the dinosaurs. I feel like the overwhelming support and love that this film got, making it the highest grossing picture ever made at the time, is enough to put it over the edge. So congrats, Spielberg for absolutely dominating in ’93, with two of the greatest films ever made, and congrats to Jurassic Park for taking home even more hardware! But damn, you ask me this same question tomorrow and who knows which movie I choose…
Thanks for joining me on another trip down memory lane to see what could’ve been! We got one of the most harrowing and honest portrayals of the Holocaust ever put to film, a stop-motion family musical that became a beloved double holiday classic for millions, and a dinosaur of a blockbuster… all about dinosaurs… that became a mega franchise that’s made billions of dollars. This was a damn fine year. Be sure to come back next month when we look at films like Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, and The Shawshank Redemption.Next time we’ll return for the Oscars of 1995, celebrating the films of 1994!
You can read more from Heath Lynch, and follow him on Letterboxd