by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
Welcome back to another Oscars: What If, our retrospective look at the Oscars!
The 96th Academy Awards are just a couple weeks away. Oppenheimer looks more and more like a lock to take home the big prize, but there’s still flux in other categories like Best Actress and Actor. It’s going to be fun. But before we get too excited for this year’s Oscars, let’s go back to another awards season long gone. As a reminder, with Oscars: What If… 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 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was first published, Hong Kong was handed over from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China, scientists culture the first human stem cells, the Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner land on Mars, and Diana, Princess of Wales, tragically passed away in a car crash. It is time to examine the films of 1997, celebrated at the Oscars in 1998. 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… Face/Off, The Full Monty, The Game, Titanic, Tomorrow Never Dies
And the winner is… Tomorrow Never Dies!
John Woo antics, choreographed stripteases, falling through a skylight after jumping off a building, and trying to survive a sinking ship are all worthy contenders, but once again, this award is going to the greatest cinematic spy of all time. Tomorrow Never Dies simply offers too much. James Bond provides epic car chases, repelling, or even jumping off skyscrapers, scuba diving underwater, a helicopter chasing down a motorcycle, and doing a risky HALO jump from tens of thousands of feet in the sky. Explosions, destruction, and so much more put these incredible stunt performers at risk, and they deliver this year’s best stunt work, which never ceases to amaze. Maybe one day a 007 movie will lose this Oscar, but for right now, this is James Bond’s world and we’re all just living in it.
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… Susan Egan as Megara in Hercules, Junko Iwao as Mima Kirigoe in Perfect Blue, Yoji Matsuda as Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, Meg Ryan as Anastasia “Anya” Romanova in Anastasia, James Woods as Hades in Hercules
And the winner is… James Woods as Hades in Hercules!
While I personally may not be the biggest fan of James Woods as a person, as an acting talent he is undeniably great. His turn as Hades in Hercules is inspired. Although it would’ve been great to hear, we don’t get a musical number from Woods, but the malice and fury he delivers in this performance is terrific. What makes it so terrific is that he makes his menacing anger so entertaining and comedic. You’re scared of him as a character, and for the havoc he will wreck in the story, while also laughing and smiling at his over-the-top goofiness. There’s just too much kinetic energy to not fall in love with this eccentric performance.
Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast
Given to the best overall ensemble cast performance.
And the nominees are… As Good as It Gets, Boogie Nights, Good Will Hunting, Jackie Brown, L.A. Confidential
And the winner is… L.A. Confidential!
Once again, the Best Ensemble category is the hardest category to pick. There are several films I felt bad about just cutting from the nominee list, let alone picking a winner from these five amazing ensemble performances. As the saying goes, catch me on a different day and I’ll likely give you a different answer. But today I’m giving the gold to L.A. Confidential. I mean… Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, David Strathairn, and James Cromwell… this cast is insane. And it’s not even just that the cast is insane: Their performances are great, too. In fact, of those listed, Basinger is arguably the weakest and most one dimensional of the bunch, and she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress! When the chink in the armor is an Oscar winner, you know you’re in good shape. The chemistry between these performances, especially as multiple characters are duplicitous and double-dealing, is astounding. You can’t help but be drawn in and engaged, while being incredibly impressed by everything you see these performers give us on screen. So, today at least, I’m happy to give the Best Ensemble Oscar to these fantastic performances.
Best Directorial Debut
Given to the best achievement in direction by a debut directing talent.
And the nominees are… Peter Cattaneo for The Full Monty, Vincent Gallo for Buffalo ‘66, Satoshi Kon for Perfect Blue, Kasi Lemmons for Eve’s Bayou, Andrew Niccol for Gattaca
And the winner is… Andrew Niccol for Gattaca!
The second toughest category of the night, because there’s a lot of great breakthrough directing talent from this year. In Gattaca, Niccol provides the combination of developing authentic and well rounded characters, crafting a unique, futuristic world and adhering to its rules while building its lore, and delivering on powerful and resonant themes. From the performances Niccol pulls from his cast to the framing of his shots, there’s so much to be commended. I would really love to give this to Peter Cattaneo or Kasi Lemmons, but for right now, the gold for Best Directorial Debut is going to Niccols for his stellar work with Gattaca.
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… As Good as It Gets, Hercules, Liar Liar, Men in Black, Titanic
And the winner is… Titanic!
Yeah… welcome to the most obvious winner in the history of this series. I don’t even know what, if anything, I need to say here. So I’ll keep it brief.
Titanic earned a whopping $674.3 million domestically and a staggering $2.257 billion worldwide. Holy crap. By comparison, the second highest grossing domestic movie that year was Men in Black, and it barely crossed $250 million. This instantly shattered all box office grossing records and held the record for the highest worldwide grossing film ever made until James Cameron broke his own record with Avatar over a decade later. To this day Titanic is still the fourth highest grossing film ever made. In terms of its accolades, it won a total of 111 different awards on the back of 162 nominations, and it is tied for the record of most nominations, with 14, and for the most wins of all time, with 11. This includes wins for Film Editing, Cinematography, Directing for Cameron, and the highly coveted Best Picture. In every single way that Titanic could be a success, it was a massive success. Beloved by critics and audiences alike, there is literally no possible way the Best Popular Film Oscar could go to anything other than Titanic.
Thanks for joining me on another trip down memory lane to see what could’ve been! We got to examine one of the most awarded films of all time that was once the box office king for over a decade, the breakout movie for Damon and Affleck, and a great neo-noir crime drama with one of the best ensemble casts you’ve ever seen. Be sure to come back next month when we look at films like The Truman Show, The Big Lebowski, and Saving Private Ryan. We’ll return for the Oscars of 1999, celebrating the films of 1998!
You can read more from Heath Lynch, and follow him on Letterboxd