By now, the damage from the 83rd Academy Awards is too much to overcome. I can’t even brag about calling Tom Hooper’s upset of David Fincher for Best Director because of how poorly the rest of my predictions played out. Granted, I got tripped up by the 3 Horsemen of the Oscar Pool Apocalypse, the short film categories; I went 0-3 this year.
But in my post-show gloom, I decided to ramp up my usual comparative analysis of the present year’s ceremony to a past year’s ceremony. And boy do I have quite the comparison for this year…
Oddly enough, it’s the year I was born: 1988.
(Side note: The 61st Academy Awards saw the introduction of the classic phrase “And the Oscar goes to…”)
“The King’s Speech” and “Inception” both tallied 4 wins this year. In 1988, “Rain Man” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” both garnered 4 wins.
“The King’s Speech” and “Rain Man” won the same 4 categories – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay.
“Inception” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” triumphed in the technical awards (both won awards for sound and visual effects).
“Inception” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” were the commercial favorites, capturing the adoration of national audiences. (Of course, “Rain Man” and “The King’s Speech” also eclipsed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office.) Both films are gamechangers in story-telling. “The King’s Speech” and “Rain Man” were fairly straightforward movies.
Hoffman’s character in “Rain Man” suffers from a restrictive/repetitive behavioral impediment. Colin Firth’s character in “The King’s Speech” is no different.
“The Social Network” and “Dangerous Liaisons” both won 3 Oscars. Both were nominated for Best Picture, and both won the Best Adapted Screenplay award. Both are tales of sexual seduction; one is set in Pre-Revolution France and the other set around Facebook.
Natalie Portman just won her first Best Actress Oscar at the age of 29. Her breakthrough role was at the age of 13, playing a 12 year-old girl with an uncomfortably awkward relationship with a much older man. (Roger Ebert questioned the film’s “would-be sexy portrayal of a pre-teenage girl.”)
Jodie Foster won her first Best Actress Oscar at the age of 26. Her breakthrough role was at the age of 13, playing a 12 year-old girl with an uncomfortably awkward relationship with much older men. (She played a child prostitute.)
Christian Bale and Kevin Kline won Best Supporting Actor Oscars. Both were both middle-aged (36 for Bale and 41 for Kline) and in the middle of very successful acting careers at the time of their wins. Unlike Bale’s triumph, Kline’s victory was considered an upset.
Hans Zimmer was nominated in both years, for “Rain Man” and “Inception.” He lost both times.
A Tim Burton film won the Academy Award for Best Makeup: “Beetlejuice” (1988) and “Alice in Wonderland” (2010).
Finally, the 1988 and 2010 winners of Best Foreign Language Film came from Denmark (“Pelle the Conqueror” and “In a Better World”).
And you probably thought I was reading too much into all of this…
