Showbiz History: Do the Right Thing's snub and American Beauty's big win
Friday, March 26, 2021 at 8:00AM On this day, March 26th, in Oscar history only...
1938 Jezebel opens in movie theaters. We discussed it in the Smackdown of '38. The movie will win Bette Davis her second and sadly final Best Actress Oscar.
1958 The 30th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1957...
Interracial romantic drama Sayonara leads the nominations but The Bridge on The River Kwai takes home Best Picture and six additional Oscars. We recently discussed this year via the Supporting Actress Smackdown. This Oscar year is notable for being the only time an Asian actress won an Oscar, the first time that the Best Picture and Best Director lists lined up exactly, and for Federico Fellini's second consecutive win in the new "Foreign-Language Film" category for Nights of Cabiria. Only one other director after him will manage two consecutive wins in the category (Ingmar Bergman from Sweden). Fellini would win twice more making him the all time leader in the category (his fellow Italian director Vittorio de Sica also received four but two were honoraries before it was a proper category).
1990 The 62nd Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1989. It's a very controversial year in Oscar history since Driving Miss Daisy wins Best Picture but Spike Lee's masterful Do the Right Thing isn't even nominated for the top prize or Best Director. Future Best Supporting Actress winner Kim Basinger actually complains about it live (see the clip above) while presenting the clip for Dead Poet's Society proving she was ahead of her time in more ways than just her future Oscar win.
2000 The 72nd Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1999. American Beauty is the night's big winner but falls one short of entering the very rare realms of "big five" winners, with Annette Bening losing Best Actress to Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry). 1999 is considered on the greatest years in film history but you absolutely wouldn't know it from the Best Picture field that year. Oscar voters majorly flubbed that season.
2010 How to Train Your Dragon opens in movie theaters. It becomes a word of mouth blockbuster and spawns two sequels, and all three of them will be up for the Best Animated Feature Oscar (the only animated trilogy to achieve that) though none will win the category. The Dragon films lost twice to Toy Story sequels (one entirely redundant) and Disney's Big Hero 6 the other time. (Disney and its subsidiaries have won 13 of the 19 Oscars in this category even when their competition was very strong; it's a default reflex for Oscar voters and will surely continue this year as well)
Oscar approved birthdays today...
Happy 36th to two time nominee Keira Knightley (Pride & Prejudice, The Imitation Game). Other key films include Pirates of the Caribbean and Atonement. Her career has been a bit quiet lately but we're rooting for a a juicy role and a third nomination soon. Up next: a holiday comedy with Matthew Goode called Silent Night.
Happy 51st birthday to Oscar winner Martin McDonaugh. His four Oscar nominations come from three different categories. He won the Best Short Film Oscar for Six Shooter (2004) and chased that with two nominations in Original Screenplay (In Bruges, Three Billboards) and one more in Best Picture (Three Billboards). His fourth feature film which will reunite his In Bruges stars, Farrell & Gleeson, is currently in pre-production.
Happy 77th to superstar Diana Ross, she was Oscar nominated in Best Actress for Lady Sings the Blues (1972) which was also her film debut. (Andra Day just repeated that exact trick, Oscar nominated for playing Billie Holliday in her film debut)
Happy 71st birthday to twice Oscar nominated composer Alan Silvestri (Forrest Gump, The Polar Express). Silvestri hasn't been able to get arrested by the Academy in a while but his career is still going strong. Recent credits include Flight, The Croods, Allied, Welcome to Marwen, Ready Player One, and three of the four Avengers movies.
Happy 79th to Oscar winning screenwriter Ronald Bass (Rain Man). Other famous films of his include My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998) and Dangerous Minds (1995)
Happy 81st to Oscar nominated actor James Caan (The Godfather). Other key films include Cinderella Liberty, Comes a Horseman, Thief, Rollerball Misery, Honeymoon in Vegas, The Way of the Gun, and his riveting vicious debut in Lady in a Cage.
Happy 87th to Oscar winner Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) who was nominated three additional times for The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Argo)
and late showbiz people like...
Tennessee with Brando
Today in 1911, one hundred and ten years ago, Tennesee Williams was born in Mississippi. He would become an enormously successful and influential playwright and affect the careers of dozens of legendary actors. He was also nominated for two Oscars for the screenplays to A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Baby Doll (1956) both based on his own plays. We've written a lot about Tennessee over the years.
Today in 1942 Oscar nominated screenwriter Richard Boyle (Salvador) was born in San Francisco. Salvador was his only produced screenplay. He died five years ago in the Philippines.
Today in 1921, one hundred years ago, Oscar winning costume Designer Julie Harris (Darling) was born. More on her later today for her centennial.
Today in 1905, one hundred and sixteen years ago composer Larry Morley was born in Los Angeles. He was Oscar nominated twice in Best original Song (Bambi, So Dear to My Heart) and was also one of the six credited directors on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Reader Comments (48)
I must be one of the very few people who didn't think "Do the Right Thing" was a good movie.
I also didn't care for 'Pulp Fiction", "Rain Man", A Beautiful Mind, Million Dollar Baby or No Country for Old Men.
American Beauty, Insider, The Green Mile, The 6th sense....... Sorry but I can't see the problem. Sure, Magnolia is missing, but those movies are great
The Do the Right Thing snub still stings. I remember cheering Basinger's comments. I also remember she got boos. It was not cool to mention racism in the Academy back then even though some critics at the time showed their true face and said Black audiences could not be trusted to watch the film without rioting and other racist things.
To show how slowly things change, later we had homophobic AMPAS members who would not even watch Brokeback Mountain and I heard some AMPAS members say that their won't vote for Minari because the Academy "did that already " with Parasite.
"Do the Right Thing" is one of the biggest snubs ever... and Spike Lee should have way more than just one competitive and one honorary Oscar by now... and has been horribly snubbed again, for Da 5 Bloods (messy? WTF? Sigh)
On "How to Train your Dragon" there's something special about this trilogy, as the mastermind behind it, Dean de Blois, is not only a great filmmaker, but also one of the very few out and successful gay bears in the business, making it special, and I am a bit pissed they aren't more clear about one of the main supporting character's homosexuality that is hinted at some point... but probably soon we'll cross that line as well.
The nominees for 1999 were great (I haven't seen Cider House Rules yet, though) but my Best Picture line up would go something like this...
The Blair Witch Project (runner up)
Fight Club (winner)
The Green Mile
Magnolia
The Matrix
(which makes clear that, out of the nominees, I would have given it to The Green Mile, which I honestly think is way better than The Shawshank Redemption).
Here are some 1999 movies that deserved a Best Pic nom over The Green Mile, Cider House Rules, and American Beauty (which isn’t awful, just not top 5 material):
Being John Malkovich
Magnolia
Three Kings
The Iron Giant
The Straight Story
Toy Story 2
Boys Don’t Cry
Fight Club
Talented Mr. Ripley
Bringing out the Dead
Any Given Sunday
All About My Mother
Eyes Wide Shut
The Matrix
Run Lola Run
Bowfinger
Election
Dogma
Existenz
Topsy-Turvy
Go
Bette Streep - You are not alone
Do the Right Thing is a great film and it is one of the shameful omissions in the academy's history of Best Picture nominations. It has only gotten better and more bitterly true-to-life over the years.
The cool thing about the first Dragon movie is it WASN'T an immediate blockbuster. First weekend results were seen as a bit of a disappointment, but then the movie had serious legs as everyone who saw it raved about it. Me included!
I caught about half an hour of Sayonara flicking the telly a while back and saw enough to see Umecki as a worthy winner. I don't get the she did nothing or didn't make an impression consensus i've read online about her performance my whole life. Oscar obsessives tend to fall into a group narrative over time which makes me wary of those who put theawards season over the joy of film as its own thing.
Do The Right Thing is very good for what it is and is trying to do. Driving Miss Daisy is wonderful for what it is and is trying to do.
God bless Kim Basinger.
I don't think Do The Right Thing is a bad movie, but it's far from being a masterpiece. Spike Lee is a good director - smart, bold -, but not the genious he thinks and others think he is.
Although Bette was a 2 time winner they don't represent the breadth of her career or the fact that she gave at least 5 better performances than the ones she won the Oscar for.
I don't normally comment on typos, but the missing comma in Caan's filmography created the movie "Rollerball Misery" and my mind is reeling at what that would look like. God, what a delicious hot mess it would be.
Let's not rewrite history for the likes on Twitter. The DTRT snub was totally expected and it didn't cause an outrage.
My personal Oscarverse Bette Davis history:
1934: loses to Carole Lombard
1935: loses to Katharine Hepburn
1938: loses to Wendy Hiller
1939: loses to Vivien Leigh
1940: WINS
1941: WINS
1942: loses to Katharine Hepburn
1944: loses to Ingrid Bergman
1950: WINS
1952: loses to Shirley Booth
1962: loses to Katharine Hepburn (for the 3rd time! - maybe that could have been a feud to replace her feud with Joan Crawford!)
Hard to believe Kiera was only 18 when Pirates came out.
There is so much more to the brouhaha surrounding Do The Right Thing than just Kim Basinger's Oscar ceremony rant.
The Spike Lee film entered the Cannes Film Festival as a frontrunner. However, the film was surprisingly snubbed in all categories. Jury member Sally Field reported to Lee that the jury president filmmaker Wim Wenders led a contingent of jurists who were critical of the film.
Lee responded by going to the press and protesting the decision to snub his film. Lee went further and was widely quoted, ""Wim Wenders has better watch out cause I'm waiting for his ass. Somewhere deep in my closet I have a Louisville slugger bat with Wenders's name on it."
While the movie was still a box office success, Lee's remarks had a chilling effect on Do The Right Thing in some awards circles. Even at the NAACP's Image Awards, the award for Best Picture overlooked Do The Right Thing and went to a bio pic, Lean on Me.
Ironically, Joe Clark, the inner city high school principal who served as the inspiration for Lean on Me, was known for carrying a baseball bat at Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey in an effort to crackdown on drug dealers and delinquents among the student body.
Do the Right Thing is a manicheist angry rant. Don't call me racist and expect me to vote for you.
James Caan, one of the wonders of the 1970s. ;-)💗
Do the right thing is a great movie about anger, it's really a masterpiece.
My top 5 for 1989:
1.Do the right thing
2.Crimes and misdemeanors
3.Born on the fourth of July
4.Sex, lies and videotape
5.Cinema Paradiso
My top 5 for 1999:
1.All about my mother
2.Magnolia
3.American beauty
4.The insider
5.Being John Malkovich
The Academy really missed the mark on the Best Picture nominees of 1989.
SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE
DRUGSTORE COWBOY
GLORY
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY...
should've also been among the nominees and have aged far better than the actual line-up. Perhaps only DEAD POET'S SOCIETY, though still imperfect, has held up over the past three decades.
I also agree that the 1999 best picture line-up aged quite badly, with the exceptions of AMERICAN BEAUTY and THE INSIDER.
I would've much preferred:
EYES WIDE SHUT
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER
ELECTION
and hell, even DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, to be among the nominees over THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, THE GREEN MILE, and the less egregious, but still lesser SIXTH SENSE.
Well, you're right about (at least) one thing...
I've said it before and I'll say it again- Keira Knightley is this generation's Diane Keaton of Oscar nominations. She only gets nominated once in a decade. Her third nomination will come during the next eight years.
1989 was another good film year, but again, not quite reflected among the nominees. I imagine it was close considering the Best Director nod, but CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS is top 5 Woody Allen and should've been among the list. Would've been my winner.
That said, I also have a verrrry soft spot for FIELD OF DREAMS, which I imagine is not popular among cineaste circles (it certainly would've been my winner among the nominees). Amy Madigan is great in it, deserved a Supporting Actress nod.
Nothing about Driving Miss Daisy is on Do the Right Thing's level. Kim Basinger was so right to call them out on their bullshit.
Thirty plus years later, and white people are still mad that Mookie threw the garbage can through Sal's window and not that the police murdered someone right before their eyes. And in the 21st century, that killing continues to play on loop every few months as another Black man or woman becomes a hashtag. Do The Right Thing is the best film of 1989 and the very best film ever about racism (not "race relations," those let's not make white people feel that bad about it flicks like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Driving Miss Daisy, The Help, and this era's Daisy, Green Book).
I have to reinforce Schmeebs' comment about 'How to train Your Dragon' being more of a sleeper hit than an immediate blockbuster. It took weeks of good word-of-mouth to break the stigma and for general audiences -- not just parents with kids -- to catch on that this was a notable cut above the usual DreamWorks fare. It didn't become a weekend box office winner until after nearly a month in wide release, which is a major rarity. I think it's still the most recent wide-release film to have achieved this? Anyone?
It's amusing that it seems like half of people think the Academy is full of a bunch of bleeding heart liberals, while the other half thinks it's full of a bunch of conservative old white men. Both groups exist within the Academy, but I think the real blanket statement you could dismissively make about the Academy is that it's emblematic of what they call White Liberalism, aka Nimby Liberalism, or more recently "Get Out" Liberalism (referring to the movie, of course).
Driving Miss Daisy was a perfect choice for them because it addressed racism but still made them feel good about themselves. Another commenter here dissed Do the Right Thing by saying "don't call me racist and expect me to vote for you," and I'm very certain that was the exact mentality of a lot of Academy voters back in 1989/90. Regardless of how you feel about either movie, Driving Miss Daisy undeniably views racism from the perspective of white privilege, i.e. it's a safe, inoffensive approach that simplifies the subject for the sake of feel-good back-patting like the cinematic equivalent of "I have a black friend, therefore I'm not a racist." Do the Right Thing is too confrontational and demands too much reflection from the audience to sit well with the type of people with whom Driving Miss Daisy really resonates.
And for the record, I think Driving Miss Daisy is fine for what it is. But it is absolutely not in any way, shape, or form an accurate portrayal of racism in America. It's really just a pleasant, feel-good movie that says "racism is wrong," which explains why the Academy embraced it. Do the Right Thing was--and still is for many people, if some of the comments here are any indication--simply too confrontational and demanding to get that kind of wholehearted mainstream embrace. A lot of people unfortunately just see it as angry--which it is, but these are people who have never been in a position to personally feel that particular type of anger. To them, racism is something that can be solved by simple "can't we all just get along?" platitudes, and I would guess they think the raw anger that Spike Lee expresses in the film is "only making it worse" or whatever.
You know it's white privilege when people feel comfortable saying they think the discomfort they feel when someone accuses them of racism is just as bad as being called a racial slur. People are seriously out here insinuating that "racist" is just as offensive a term as the n-word now. Because for a film or anything else to make them acknowledge or god forbid confront their own racial prejudices makes them too uncomfortable, so the preferable option is to instead pretend that racism will magically disappear if we all just agree to get along. That approach requires no soul searching, no reflection, no call for social or political action. Just easy answers that make them feel good about themselves. That's why Driving Miss Daisy was and remains much more popular than Do the Right Thing with a lot of people.
Kim Basinger addressing it during the Oscar telecast may not have been a "classy" move, but that's exactly the problem: people shouldn't expect an issue as volatile and destructive as racism to be approached in a "classy" or polite manner. Anger, indignation, and outrage are the appropriate responses. If racism has never made you feel any of those emotions, you're either lucky enough to have it not be something that impacts you directly, or you're deluding yourself into thinking it's something that can be solved in a way that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.
As if Do the Right Thing doesn't make its fans feel good about themselves and downright smugly superior to Driving Miss Daisy fans.
@Edwin - very well-written, thank you for that.
"I also didn't care for 'Pulp Fiction", "Rain Man", A Beautiful Mind, Million Dollar Baby or No Country for Old Men."
I don't agree with all of this, but it's nice to finally hear someone else say they didn't like Pulp Fiction. I have talked with many friends/acquaintances who said Pulp Fiction is one of their favorite movies. All it did for me was make me realize I would skip all Quentin Tarantino. I watched the California movie of a couple years ago and was underwhelmed
I wonder if Rain Man will hold up over time. I thought A Beautiful Mind was great, but I'm bipolar. Million Dollar Baby was interesting because Clint took the 2nd half of the movie in a totally unexpected direction. I skipped No Country because it looked greasy.
Crimes and Misdemeanors is a half-masterpiece. It should be all about Landau's character. The Allen part is flat.
It is really interesting that white men in Tarantino movies can be mad and destructive as hell but the white audiences still see the characters' life as having value and empathize with them but goodness forbid black characters be "loud/angry". Their stories and points of view have no value to the same white audiences and they are so not self aware or hypocritical about it.
@marshako: Right on. I'm surprised at the Do the Right Thing hate but then again, I shouldn't be. It's a brilliant and as Kim Basinger opined, it tells the truth.
@Edwin: beautifully, eloquently put. Thank you.
@ rrrich7
I suffered through the '94 awards season: Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump are both dreck, simply awful.
Kim Basinger rocks! She's one of my home girls and yes, the Oscars were racist then and they're still racist now!
Fuck that new cap and his token bitch.
Tom G. You could be right on Keira being like Keaton for Oscar nom pattern! I keep feeling like John Lithgow is going to follow Jack Palance's Oscar story, but it's yet to materialise.
Good writing Edwin. So many words that I'm shocked you fall into the modern veiwers 'Daisy Trap' of not seeing the scope and character focus as being very intentional and not some let's avoid gritty Do The Right Thing level angry raw racism at all costs. It just doesn't fit in the Daisy story. Knock the voters for their aversion to Do The Right Thing and their liking of the sweet smaller scale film that handles prejudice primarily between a focus of two characters, but try mention Do The Right Thing without needing to mention paragraphs about Driving Miss Daisy. It's harder for those who view films with Oscar first in their minds (often the don't realise they've trained their brains to think this way and get uber defensive when the fact is brought to their attention) and good film and the magic of cinema second.
Amy Camus - Without needing to write a huge comment you said the most true statement today about DTRT fans acting smugly superior to DMD. I don't think these folks realise they're playing out on a micro level what overly woke twitter does with their righteous rage on every opinion, nuance be damned.
marshako - I guess my white circle doesn't view they film that way, but maybe you know more Bro types and that's where the phenomena you mention is most active?
cal roth - and Mighty Aphrodite is an enjoyable fun time, without the dragged out Woody introduction section. Get us to one of the most underrated Best Supporting Actress winners already, that's when the film comes alive!
The reason so many white Academy members love DMD is tat it keeps racism on an interpersonal level instead of viewing it on a structural level but that would require white movie goers be asked to care about black characters on more than a surface level..
At the end of DMD they are friends which is nice I guess but Hoke still spent most of the film unable to live or even move around freely due to segregation. Being friends did not do anything to move him or his community into a better place and and since the film is from Miss Daisy's viewpoint; we are not supposed care about that either.
And since the technicals of the film are not impressive, the main thing it has going for it is the faux important look at race relations. I will say it is better than GreenBook in that at least it does have really good performances and the sense to put Morgan Freeman in best actor.
marshako, great first paragraph. You get muddled by the end, but you've almost got it!
Unfortunately, Diana Ross has made fewer films than she should have. Beautiful, charismatic and talented.
@Alfred You are right. I got a little "extra" towards the end of the post.
In 2051 will be going on like this about PYW vs Nomandland vs Minari?
Keira has had two kids pretty recently so that’s partially why she has worked less.