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 As much as we enjoy the Academy Awards, there's
no denying they've made an awful lot of mistakes over the years,
frequent errors in judgement which resulted in films now regarded as
all-time classics failing to win any of the major Oscars. Mike
Leigh's Vera
Drake may have walked away with four BAFTAs this year, but on
Oscar night it didn't fare quite so well. Nominations: 3. Awards: 0.
Still, it's in good company. Though nominated for a whopping eleven
Oscars - Best Song, Score, Make-Up, Costume Design, Cinematography,
Art Direction, Screenplay, Picture, Supporting Actress (twice) and
Actress - The
Color Purple (1985) was completely overlooked, walking away
without a single statuette to call its own. To date, only one other
film has been so cruelly snubbed, Shirley
MacLaine weepie The Turning Point
(1977), though it's possible that movie had it coming.
Further crimes against cinema perpetrated by
the Academy include failing to give any of its major awards - Best
Director, Picture, Actor or Actress - to films as fabulous as Billy
Wilder's riotous Some
Like It Hot, Stanley Kubrick's seminal 2001:
A Space Odyssey, Spielberg's
action blockbuster Raiders
of the Lost Ark and, though many people consider it to be their
all-time favourite movie, inspiring prison drama The
Shawshank Redemption. Even Singin'
in the Rain failed at Oscar-time.
Widely regarded to be the ultimate Hollywood musical, back when it
was released in 1952, it didn't even win Best Score. For shame.
 Hard
though it may be to believe, Alfred
Hitchcock never won an Oscar for directing. Though nominated six
times between 1941 and 1961, the Master of Suspense never quite cut
it with the Academy. Not for Rebecca
or Suspicion.
Not for Lifeboat or Spellbound.
Not even for Rear
Window or Psycho.
Apparently they felt his movies were far too commercial to deserve
additional Oscar recognition. Hot on Hitchcock's tail of failure is
iconic Italian-American director Martin
Scorsese. Nominated five times for directing (Raging
Bull, The
Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas,
Gangs
of New York and this year's loser The
Aviator) and twice for writing (Goodfellas
and The
Age of Innocence), he's won nothing seven times in a row. Scary
genius Stanley
Kubrick was also denied the pleasure of winning an Oscar. Though
nominated four times for directing (Dr
Strangelove, 2001,
A
Clockwork Orange and Barry
Lyndon), five times for writing (the same four movies plus Full
Metal Jacket) and three times for producing (Best Picture
nominees Dr
Strangelove, A
Clockwork Orange and Barry
Lyndon), he was overlooked all twelve times. Further filmmaking
masters snubbed by the Academy include Ridley
Scott (failing to win for Thelma
& Louise, Gladiator
and Black
Hawk Down), Ingmar
Bergman (nine nominations, all misses) and Spike
Lee (not even for Do
the Right Thing), while Tim
Burton hasn't been
honoured with even a single nomination.
 King
of the Oscar-losing actors has to be the late, great Richard
Burton, nominated a whopping seven times for films as diverse as
The
Robe, Equus
and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Seven times the Academy got his
hopes up, and seven times they dashed those hopes on the rocks of
failure. Just like they're doing to Tom
Cruise right now, although he's only had to deal with three
defeats to date (Born
on the Fourth of July, Jerry
Maguire and Magnolia).
Despite his enormous stature in the business and worldwide
domination of the box office, the Academy don't think he's quite
right for one of their precious golden boys. Peter
O'Toole had to sit through seven Oscar nights without a single
win, not even for Lawrence
of Arabia. Kirk
Douglas lost three times, Cary
Grant twice while Brad
Pitt and Samuel
L. Jackson have both blown it once so far, same as movie legend
Steve
McQueen. Still, at least they were nominated, which is more than
I can say for Errol
Flynn, Rita
Hayworth, Bob
Hope, Marilyn
Monroe, Tyrone
Power, Vincent
Price, Jim
Carrey and Bruce
Willis.
In the
ladies' corner, Glenn
Close has the least to be grateful to the Academy for, having
been nominated five times (including Fatal Attraction and Dangerous
Liaisons) without success. Barbara
Stanwyck has felt the bitter sting of Oscar rejection four times
(including Double Indemnity), Greta
Garbo and Michelle
Pfeiffer three times, Ava
Gardner once, and with only a single Best Supporting Actress
nomination to her credit, Lauren
Bacall has also never seen cause to applaud the Academy's taste.
Worse still, Marilyn
Monroe, Meg
Ryan, Drew
Barrymore, Demi
Moore and Rita
Hayworth don't even have a
nomination to hold on to.
So there you have it. Proof positive that good
work can go unrewarded, unless of course you count the lives of
wealth and privilege they all enjoy. In which case the Oscars don't
matter at all. Ultimately, all that counts is that their movies
endure, and that we can all still enjoy them. With a little help
from Blockbuster Online, of course.
Collateral - TM,(R) & Copyright (c) 2005 by
Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
Finding Neverland
- (c) Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc
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"Actors agree to take part in my films on the
basis that we don't know what the character or the story is
and we'll make it all up,"
Read our Mike
Leigh Interview.
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