1994 Academy Awards: Who really should have won Part II

Hey y'all, here I am with the second installment on my flashback roughly 25 years ago to a pretty infamous Oscars. For a time, the Forrest Gump defeat of Pulp Fiction in the Best Picture race was always cited alongside Dances with Wolves defeat of GoodFellas and Ordinary People's defeat of Raging Bull, one of the biggest misses in movie history.

Since then there's been Crash, some have argued Chicago (I wouldn't, that wasn't a very strong Best Picture field), The Artist, The King's Speech and whole bunch of other womp womp winners over the least several years. Like I said in the previous post, you can't be a movie fan and not have a love-hate relationship with the Oscars.

It's just a silly awards show and, somehow, the most important thing ever.

Let's talk about the supporting races.

In the men's supporting category it's one of the more controversial wins in recent memory, partially because Samuel L. Jackson's very human reaction to losing became a beloved meme, but also because he really, really should have won.

Best Supporting Actor
Martin Landau, Ed Wood
Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction
Gary Sinese, Forrest Gump
Paul Scofield, Quiz Show
Chazz Palminteri, Bullets Over Broadway

Who won: Martin Landau, Ed Wood
Should win: Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction

If it weren't for Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction would just be a stylized throwback crime film. It doesn't have the same narrative bang as many of Tarantino's later works, and its weaknesses are largely papered over because of Jackson's galvanizing, breakthrough work here. He gives one of my favorite performances ever in this movie, just wipes everybody else of the screen. He should have been in the Best Actor race and his loss here is unconscionable.

Martin Landau gives a wonderfully funny, totally unrecognizable performance as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, it's definitely the second best performance in this category though. I understand at the time there was some expectation that Landau would die soon and deserved career recognition, but jokes on the Academy I guess because he lives for close to 25 more years, not too shabby.

Gary Sinese's committed work as Lt. Dan is probably one of the elements of that film that holds up the best, especially since his character's inherent cynicism feels more in keeping with the times we're living in now. I think Sinese is an interesting actor who seemed to really have a moment in the 90s (I particularly liked him in Snake Eyes) and then just disappeared. I know he's right winger and has done a lot of TV, but he deserves an interesting new role to resurrect his career.

I was one of the few people to see Robert Redford's underrated Quiz Show in theaters. It's a gorgeous-looking, old fashioned picture -- yes-- but it's still fantastic. Scofield's great in it, as is Ralph Fiennes, but I think John Turturro gives perhaps his best performance ever in it. He should have been nominated.

For some reason, I've never seen Bullets Over Broadway, although I like Chazz Palminteri. It's a weird Woody Allen blind spot for me and I feel like his 90s are generally kind of lost period where very few of the films are very good.

And speaking of being a shitty man, I must admit to not having seen four out of the five nominated performances in the Best Supporting Actress category. I am sure Dianne Wiest was a fine and worthy winner, so I can't argue against her in favor of Uma Thurman, who's work in Pulp Fiction I just adore. That final scene between her and Travolta, which she totally slays (see at 6:26 mark), is one of the sweetest Tarantino ever committed to film. It's a shame their relationship appears to have deteriorated due to his behind the scenes assholery, since they really made such a great team.