The 1985 Oscar race for Best Picture was relatively suspense-free. “Out of Africa” was the shoo-in, and, yawn, it won. Speaking of yawn, I check my watch when I look at the one-sheet for “Out of Africa.”
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The other nominees:
The Color Purple: Eleven total nominations. Spielberg not nominated for Best Director. Zero wins. Not a bad movie, as I recall. It proved Spielberg had some versatility. I think that hurt the movie come Oscar time. The guy tries not to make a crowd-pleaser and makes one anyway.
Kiss of the Spider Woman: Not nearly as cool as it sounds. But it’s neat to remember a time when Hollywood made movies that portrayed other governments as oppressive.
Witness: Harrison Ford proves he can go through an entire movie without smiling. Re-proves it over and over again a hundred times over the subsequent twenty some odd years. But it felt fresh in 1985.
Prizzi’s Honor: Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner in a pretty funny comedy about married mobsters. Doesn’t quite hold up, in my opinion.
What SHOULD HAVE been nominated?
I agree with “Witness” and “The Color Purple,” but would have switched out the others for…
Back to the Future: Big Hollywood contributor Bob Gale was nominated for his endlessly clever screenplay, which he co-wrote with director Robert Zemeckis, but other than that, the biggest, most culturally relevant movie of 1985 received mostly technical nominations.
Vision Quest: Most underrated sports movie of all time? Love everything about it. Great soundtrack, solid acting, and Linda Fiorentino.
Silverado: Lawrence Kasdan packs this movie with winks and nods toward any number of classic westerns in this witty, fun cowboy movie. Costner oozes star appeal in a funny supporting role, damn near stealing the movie from co-stars Scott Glenn, Kevin Kline, and Danny Glover.
And the winner wasn’t but should’ve been…
It’s not even close. A timeless movie with timeless themes, “Back to the Future” was a hit with critics, but was passed over for nominations in lieu of weightier fare. This is the kind of omission that cements the Academy’s elitist reputation; Zemekis’ sin was making a movie that doesn’t feel “important” enough and certainly isn’t esoteric enough.
It’s also a comedy. Oscar is not a fan of comedy, so a big, action packed, four quadrant comedy with – GASP! – universal themes – never stood a chance against the nominees from 1985. Sure, “Prizzi’s Honor” was a comedy, with a different kind of pedigree. Aging director, Jack Nicholson, darker themes.
If nothing else, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale should have won for their amazing screenplay. Intricate and simple at the same time, to me it’s one of the top five scripts from the entire decade, and is in the running for top ten or twenty all time. Every line of dialogue, every character quirk, every moment of exposition, has a corresponding payoff. Not all of them call attention to themselves, but the ones that do are crowd pleasing moments that remain etched in pop culture lore.
But, hey. “Out of Africa” has…accents. And really long scenes. And…other stuff.
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