by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
Welcome back to another Oscars: What If, our retrospective look at the Oscars!
Can you feel the awards buzz in the air? The Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards have already happened. Oppenheimer is looking like this year’s favorite. But the nominations for the BAFTA and SAG Awards have only just been announced, and the Oscar nominees come out this week! Anything could still happen! It’s a fun time to talk about film awards. So with that said, let’s go look back at another awards season long gone. As a reminder, in this series, we look at categories the Academy Awards should be honoring, but for one reason or another, they aren’t, and we imagine what could’ve been regarding past Oscar seasons. 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 the there was an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease in Britain, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected as Prime Minister of Israel for the first time, Bill Clinton wins his second term in the White House over Bob Dole, Tupac Shakur was murdered, and Michael Jordan won his fourth NBA Championship in his first full year back in the NBA. It is time to examine the films of 1996, celebrated at the Oscars in 1997. 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… Eraser, Evita, Mission: Impossible, The Rock, Twister
And the winner is… Mission: Impossible!
Surprisingly, this was actually a rather weak year for stunts and choreography. I had a hard time even coming up with five films to nominate that I was solidly comfortable with. Even films that you think would be contenders, like Independence Day, That Thing You Do!, or Scream, really don’t have that much to offer. But there was at least a handful that stood out, and I’m happy to nominate those… but this was never really a competition, because of those five, there was one movie out in front the whole time. Mission: Impossible is the easy winner this year. From the iconic break-in at CIA headquarters to steal the NOC list, dangling from the ceiling in dead silence, to running away from an exploding fish tank with a wave of water chasing you, or hanging on the top of a train as a helicopter bears down upon you, this movie accomplishes so much. Sure, some of this is definitely helped by special effects, but a lot of it was done practically, and no other film from this year comes close to matching the intensity, danger, or skill involved in these stunts.
Best Performance by Voiceover or Motion Capture
Given to the best offscreen voice performance, or onscreen motion captured, performance.
And the nominees are… Tom Hulce as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tony Jay as Judge Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mike Judge as Various in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Frank Oz as Various in Muppet Treasure Island, Billy West as Various in Space Jam
And the winner is… Tony Jay as Judge Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame!
Okay, now we’re talking. We’re getting into some heavier hitting categories from this year, and there’s a surprising amount of great performances in it. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is arguably the darkest film Disney Animation Studios has ever made, and the two central performances certainly pack a punch. Frank Oz dazzles, as he always does, with his Muppet work, Billy West is terrific in Space Jam, and Mike Judge is here seemingly playing a million roles in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, but I’m giving it to Tony Jay. Everything that he accomplishes with this performance is terrific… and terrifying. He is a menacing and evil figure, exemplified in his torturous malice, and maybe even more pronounced at the lengths in which he goes to protect himself when he’s fearful for his life. His rendition of “Hellfire” is powerful and haunting, making it one of the best Disney villain songs ever made to this day. He is a towering figure that lord’s over this entire picture, and might just be the most disgusting and vile villain we’ve ever seen from any Disney film. This is all possible due to Jay’s tremendous work. I’m very happy to award him the Oscar for Best Performance by Voiceover or Motion Capture. Tom Hulce, I’m so sorry I can’t get you your Oscar. I’m snubbing you once again to another performance in your own movie…
Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast
Given to the best overall ensemble cast performance.
And the nominees are… The Birdcage, Fargo, Hard Eight, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies
And the winner is… The Birdcage!
Hell yeah, another stacked category! And what’s great is that these are not just terrific ensemble performances, but they are all completely different types of ensemble performances. From risqué, to romantic, to dark comedies, as well as crime thrillers, and familial dramas, we’ve got it all here, and they’re all excellent at what they do. Some of the best you can ever see. I’m going to go against the grain here, because every instinct is telling me that I should give this award to Secrets & Lies, but I actually feel it belongs to The Birdcage. Because, while Secrets & Lies is incredible, most of the scenes are one-on-one sequences throughout the film, with only a brief 15 or so minutes in which everyone is together. Whereas The Birdcage has a ton of people interacting with one another throughout the entire film, and the entire third act is one masterpiece in ensemble acting. Everyone is on the screen, feeding off each other, building chemistry, and articulating exactly what makes ensemble performances work so well. Nathan Lane, Dianne Wiest, Hank Azaria, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Gene Hackman, and Robin Williams all crush it. When you consider that a lot of these characters are pretending that they are someone they’re not, adding extra depth and layers to their performances, it’s hard not to be impressed… especially while you’re also laughing your ass off because they’re so damn funny. Even more impressive is that the movie has an exceptional amount of heart to it, and that is accomplished through these intricate performances, especially when the veil is thrown off at the end of the film and people have to come head to head with their prejudices and biases. All of this is accomplished due to the tremendous ensemble performance of this cast, so I’m happy to give this Oscar to The Birdcage.
Best Directorial Debut
Given to the best achievement in direction by a debut directing talent for film.
And the nominees are… Paul Thomas Anderson for Hard Eight, Wes Anderson for Bottle Rocket, Tom Hanks for That Thing You Do!, Billy Bob Thornton for Sling Blade, Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski for Bound
And the winner is… Paul Thomas Anderson for Hard Eight!
Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the biggest directorial names in Hollywood to this day, and he’s been one of the best ever since his debut, Hard Eight. This small scale, low stakes crime thriller is much more of a character study than it is anything else. It’s the type of film that gets to the heart of why people tick, even the most disturbing and wicked of people. Anderson’s ability to weave together this narrative from his well-constructed script, while pulling out tremendous performances from this great cast featuring the likes of Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Samuel L. Jackson, exemplifies why he’s such a talent. From long oners to slowly paced scenes that seem to frame not just characters, but emotions themselves, Hard Eight is an outstanding film. I’m happy to award Anderson this Oscar for Directorial Debut. Especially as he still has not earned a real one to this day, even after 11 different nominations, three of which for Best Director themselves. Academy, are you listening? Give this man the gold, damnit!
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 Birdcage, Independence Day, Jerry Maguire, Mission: Impossible, Scream
And the winner is… Jerry Maguire!
I’m not going to lie, I would kind of love to give this to any other nominee other than Jerry Maguire. Nothing against Jerry Maguire — I actually love it — but I think it would just be more fun to award The Birdcage, Independence Day, Mission: Impossible, or Scream. A film that did so much for the LGBTQ+ community, one of the biggest disaster blockbusters ever, an espionage flick that went on to spawn a franchise, and one of the most innovative and defining horror films of all time. But to not award Jerry Maguire would be disingenuous, because it was dominant at the box office, from a critical perspective, and even in pop culture.
Jerry Maguire went on to earn $153.9 million at the domestic box office and $119.6 million internationally, for a combined total of $273.5 million worldwide… all against a budget of only $50 million. This was good enough to make it the number four film of the year at the domestic box office, and the number nine movie worldwide. Still, to this day, it is a top-10 romantic comedy unadjusted box office earner, which is saying something, as it has nearly been 30 years since this film was released. If we adjust this for inflation, this movie is making $531.2 million at the worldwide box office today. To put that into perspective, that’s just about as much as Tom Cruise made this past year with Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, and more money than John Wick: Chapter 4 or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. A romantic comedy making that kind of money? Nearly unheard of.
Additionally, Jerry Maguire received five Oscar nominations, including one win for Cuba Gooding Jr as Best Supporting Actor. Cruise was also nominated for Best Actor, Cameron Crow received a Best Original Screenplay nom, and the film itself received a Best Picture nom. It also performed well with wins and nominations at the Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Critics Choice Awards from that year. It’s not even that this film was just an awards darling, it infested pop culture. Permeated the zeitgeist. To this day you will still hear people quoting this movie. “Help me, help you,” “You had me at hello,” and, “Show me the money!” are all common phrases in some way shape or form, and they all spawned from this film. Hell, you could even make a solid argument that Cuba Gooding Jr won his Oscar on the strength of the “Show me the money!” scene alone. For all these reasons, its box office dominance, its awards performance, and its pop culture legacy, I find it hard to award this Oscar to any other film. So with that said, the Oscar for Best Popular Film of 1996 goes to Jerry Maguire!
Thanks for joining me on another trip down memory lane to see what could’ve been! We got to examine a banner year for Tom Cruise, one of the biggest Hollywood movie stars of all time, we got masterful debuts from auteur directors who are still respected names to this day, and we got a plethora of fun and memorable ensemble performances. Be sure to come back next month when we look at films like Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, and Titanic. Next time we’ll return for the Oscars of 1998, celebrating the films of 1997!
You can read more from Heath Lynch, and follow him on Letterboxd