How many times have you sat there scratching your head when a particular movie, actor, or director doesn’t win the Oscar, let alone the ones that are completely overlooked and not nominated? As anyone else said, “How the hell did (insert nominee) win?!” It seems like a yearly frustration for most because this film wasn’t released at the right time or it didn’t receive a standing ovation at some pretentious film festival or its RottenTomatoes score wasn’t fresh enough or there wasn’t enough diversity or they had to throw a particular nominee in there because of backlash from the year before…It’s exhausting. I’m just going to come out and say it. The Academy is full of crap and the Oscars are more about who plays the game the right way and what nominees tickled some old person’s fancy just how they like it or your contribution to cinema is just out of luck when comes to getting recognition during award season.
So, SAW’s answer to this is to right these wrongs the best we can by nominating what tickles our fancy! The writers at SAW hunkered down in our War Room for the past month to hammer out what we feel were the best from movies of the year 1994 in the nine main categories along with a bonus category for the worst movie of 1994 and we would like you guys to vote for the winners.
We give you:
The RetrOscars 1995
Best Picture
Pulp Fiction
Leon: The Professional
Forrest Gump
Little Women
The Shawshank Redemption
Natural Born Killers
Dumb and Dumber
Ed Wood
Legends of the Fall
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Best Director
Robert Zemeckis for Forrest Gump
Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction
Luc Besson for Leon: The Professional
Frank Darabont for The Shawshank Redemption
Gillian Armstrong for Little Women
Best Actor
Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers
Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump
Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption
John Travolta in Pulp Fiction
Jim Carrey in The Mask
Best Actress
Toni Colette in Muriel’s Wedding
Irene Jacob in Three Colours: Red
Jessica Lange in Blue Sky
Jodi Foster in Nell
Winona Ryder in Little Women
Supporting Actor
Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction
Martin Landau in Ed Wood
Gary Sinise in Forrest Gump
Gary Oldman in Leon: The Professional
Joe Pesci in With Honors
Supporting Actress
Natalie Portman in Leon: The Professional
Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction
Dianne Wiest in Bullets Over Broadway
Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire
Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers
Best Animated Feature
The Lion King
Faust
Pom Poko
Best Screenplays (Original and Adapted)
Leon: The Professional
The Lion King
Forrest Gump
The Shawshank Redemption
Natural Born Killers
Pulp Fiction
The Crow
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Clerks
Best Score/Soundtrack Song
Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon by Urge Overkill in Pulp Fiction
Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dogg in Above the Rim
Big Empty by Stone Temple Pilots in The Crow
The Shawshank Redemption– Score by Thomas Newman
Shitlist by L7 in Natural Born Killers
The Lion King– Score by Hans Zimmer
Can You Feel the Love Tonight by Elton John in The Lion King
Forrest Gump – Score by Alan Silvestri
Stay (I Missed You) by Lisa Loeb in Reality Bites
In The Mouth of Madness– Score by John Carpenter
For a fun little bonus category, we decided to add our own RetroRazzie award.
Worst Movie of 1994
The Flintstones
It’s Pat
Exit to Eden
Car 54 Where Are You?
Color of Night
*Click here for your voting ballot. Voting closes at 11:59 pm CST on Monday, November 29th.*
Original Nominees and Winners (in bold)
Best Picture
Forrest Gump
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Pulp Fiction
Quiz Show
The Shawshank Redemption
Best Director
Robert Zemeckis – Forrest Gump
Woody Allen – Bullets Over Broadway
Quentin Tarantino – Pulp Fiction
Robert Redford – Quiz Show
Krzysztof Kieślowski – Three Colors: Red
Best Actor
Tom Hanks – Forrest Gump as Forrest Gump
Morgan Freeman – The Shawshank Redemption as Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding
Nigel Hawthorne – The Madness of King George as King George III of the United Kingdom
Paul Newman – Nobody’s Fool as Donald “Sully” Sullivan
John Travolta – Pulp Fiction as Vincent Vega
Best Actress
Jessica Lange – Blue Sky as Carly Marshall
Jodie Foster – Nell as Nell Kellty
Miranda Richardson – Tom & Viv as Vivienne Haigh-Wood
Winona Ryder – Little Women as Josephine “Jo” March
Susan Sarandon – The Client as Regina “Reggie” Love
Best Supporting Actor
Martin Landau – Ed Wood as Bela Lugosi
Samuel L. Jackson – Pulp Fiction as Jules Winnfield
Chazz Palminteri – Bullets Over Broadway as Cheech
Paul Scofield – Quiz Show as Mark Van Doren
Gary Sinise – Forrest Gump as Lt. Dan Taylor
Best Supporting Actress
Dianne Wiest – Bullets Over Broadway as Helen Sinclair
Rosemary Harris – Tom & Viv as Rose Robinson Haigh-Wood
Helen Mirren – The Madness of King George as Queen Charlotte
Uma Thurman – Pulp Fiction as Mia Wallace
Jennifer Tilly – Bullets Over Broadway as Olive Neal
Best Original Screenplay
Pulp Fiction – Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino; Stories by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary
Bullets Over Broadway – Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath
Four Weddings and a Funeral – Richard Curtis
Heavenly Creatures – Peter Jackson and Frances Walsh
Red – Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Best Adapted Screenplay
Forrest Gump – Eric Roth based on the novel by Winston Groom
The Madness of King George – Alan Bennett based on his stage play The Madness of George III
Nobody’s Fool – Robert Benton based on the novel by Richard Russo
Quiz Show – Paul Attanasio based on the book Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties by Richard N. Goodwin
The Shawshank Redemption – Frank Darabont based on the short novel “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen King
Worst Movie
Color of Night
North
On Deadly Ground
The Specialist
Wyatt Earp
Thank you for voting and be sure to check back on November 30th when the winners will be revealed!
