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Best Picture
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THE WINNER:
He plays Forrest Gump, an idiot with an I.Q. of 75, born in the postage stamp-size town of Greenbow, Alabama. From his earliest memories he is guided by two inspirations. First is his mama, a good woman who teaches her slow-witted son that he is no different than anyone else. Of his low I.Q., she reminds him that "Stupid is as stupid does". Of is leg braces she reminds him " "If God intended everybody to be the same he'd have given us all braces on our legs." The other influence is the love of his life, Jenny Curren, a little girl he meets on the school bus. She comes from an abusive home and finds comfort in Forrest's good heartedness. She will become the great love of his life even as she often leaves him and disappears into the counter-culture movement. Through his travels, she will come and go but she is always in his heart. Forrest's world view is very narrow, he sees things as is and is guided by mama's good advise and his love for Jenny Like a feather on the breeze, Forrest floats on the winds of chance. His narrow focus and lack of smarts make him a magnet for good deeds and good luck. He goes to college and becomes a football star. He goes to Vietnam and becomes a war hero. He picks up a ping pong paddle and the next thing you know, he's competing against China's greatest champion. He comes home and fulfills his late friend's dream of opening a "shrimp'n bidniss". Along the way he is present for most of the major milestones of the last 40 years. As a boy he teaches Elvis to dance. He runs from bullies and is spotted by Bear Bryant. He ends up at the mall on Washington during the protests. He inadvertently reports the Watergate break-in. He meets presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He ends up on The Dick Cavett Show, sitting right next to John Lennon. His travels and his good luck put him in front of the tapestry of our recent history. All the while, Forrest never seems to glance at these events with anything but a matter-of-fact eye. His lack of cynicism allows him a scope on the world that is pure and innocent but it also allows him a great deal of luck because he never seems to fall by the wayside. He sees people for what is good in them, especially his reluctant friend Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise), whose life is changed when he loses his legs in battle but by a slowly developing respect for Forrest finds his own self worth and becomes a success by investing in Apple Computers, or what Forrest describes as "some new fruit company" (Gary Sinise's wonderful performance stands for all Vietnam Vets who came home wounded and diluted). Tom Hanks is probably the only actor who could embody Forrest's spirit. We spend time with a man we know is lacking in intelligence but is not immune to the realization of who is (he just doesn't express it). In the film's most heartbreaking moment, Forrest visits his mother at her deathbed and leans forward to simply ask "What's my destiny mama?" We've been present through most of his story and we've seen where the whims of chance carry him but he finally comes to wonder where all this will take him. The best lesson is mother gives him to so put the past behind him. In the film's most beautiful moment, having lost mama and Jenny, he begins a long-running job across America that takes him from one coast to the other. I think the point is that having lost the two things that he holds dearest in his heart, it is the one pain he can't run away from. |
THE WINNER:
Fiorentino turns in a ferocious performance that reminds you of what Barbara Stanwyck might have done in her best days (though Fiorentino is allowed to go a lot further). Nineteen Ninety-Four was a year teeming with brilliant performance by actresses of every kind that sadly didn’t get nominated. From Jennifer Jason Lee’s brilliant portrayal of Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, to Meg Ryan as a down-but-not-out alcoholic in When a Man Love a Woman to Juliet Binoche as a woman who loses her family in an accident and then attempt to shed all memory of them in Blue, there were almost as many great performances as the previous year. Yet, the academy chose Jessica Lange from Tony Richardson’s Blue Sky, as Carly Marshall, a mentally unstable housewife in the 1960’s whose sexual dalliances become a scandalous thorn in the side of her very patient husband. The movie had languished on the shelf for three years during the bankruptcy of Orion Pictures and also the death of its director in 1991. I can’t call Blue Sky a bad film nor can I say it was worth the three year wait. There’s nothing special about Lange’s character, she’s just another sobbing female. In fact, despite a strong showing of female performances, none of the five finalists played a strong role except Susan Sarandon's lawyer in The Client and it wasn't her best work. She has to decide what to do next, should she divorce Clay or have him killed. The truest moment in the film comes from the late J.T. Walsh who observers "Anyone check you for a heartbeat lately". Clay has sent people after her and she knows it and the only means of dealing with it is to come up with a plan of her own. Making a stop in a backwoods country hole in the road for a drink where she meets Mike Swale. Mike is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, he's a country boy running from his own problems back home. When he makes his moves on Bridget she tells him to get lost, when he brags about the size of his manly asset, she calls him on it. She has his number right away and realizes that this lunkhead might be her ticket to freedom. He doesn't exactly resist, he becomes addicted to her wild sexual prowess. Fiorentino's gift in this film is her ability to carry out this role with a tone that's almost casual. We never catch her acting and the most shocking moments in the film seem to come naturally. Note the way she calls Mike on his claim that he's "hung like a horse". He makes the claim and starts to walk away and without thinking she turns and says "Let's see it". There's a tired challenge in her eyes and we sense that she's been down this road before. She has a way of leading him by the nose almost without trying and that speaks to her ability to manipulate as much as it speaks of his inability to think with his head. She's wicked in a way that's almost sexy. She confirms my theory that the most entertaining characters are the villains because they have no scruples, no ethics, no rules. Bridget is completely self-serving, using sex and an entertainingly wicked ability crack the machismo. Mike falls for her because of the promise of sexual adventure that clouds his ability to think rationally. In revisiting this film recently, I put it at the end of a marathon that included other femme fatale like Kathleen Turner's Matty Walker in Body Heat, Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity and Babyface and Jane Greer in Out of the Past and Sue Lyons in Lolita. What they have in common is their ability to use the aroma of sex to dizzy a man's ability to think rationally and spins him into a state where he will do anything. But while those other women use their ability to melt his inhibitions, Bridget often chops at it. What Fiorentino brings to the table is the casual cold-bloodedness of Bridget to the degree that as she takes over men's lives, she also takes over the movie. We get involved in her plot and, like Mike, we end up sticking with her just to see what this unpredictable ice queen will do next. |
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