Worst Oscar Win Ever.
So bad that I can't believe it
sharehttps://www.datalounge.com/thread/14306378-how-the-hell-did-they-ever-win-an-oscar-for-that-!
[R146], because BLUE SKY never had a premiere. The Academy only counts a film eligible once it premieres in a NY or LA theater before the deadline of Dec. 31. BLUE SKY was shelved for three years because Orion went bankrupt and was never released... until September 1994, thus making it eligible for that years' Oscars.share
I sometimes wonder, if BLUE SKY had been released in 1991 (as originally intended) no way would Lange have made the lineup, and would've left the race open for Foster to win for NELL. However, Foster had already won two Lead Oscars in a three-year span. Would they have really given her a third one so soon, just 3 years after her second and at age 32?
It sounds mindboggling, but she was Lange's closest competitor that year, having won the first SAG ever. The other nominees were Winona Ryder in LITTLE WOMEN, Susan Sarandon in THE CLIENT, and MIranda Richardson in TOM & VIV. The true winner should've been Linda Fiorentino for THE LAST SEDUCTION but it was deemed ineligible because it had already been shown on HBO.
—Anonymous
reply 153 08/26/2014
One thing that helped Lange win that Oscar was a special article about her performance written by some critic in the LA Times(as I recall, he wasn't the paper's main critic, just A critic, and he was given space to praise Lange's performance in Blue Sky as incredible, overlooked, etc.)
The LA Times is a "house paper" for the film industry(alongside Variety and the Hollywood Reporter), and that Lange praise was written around the time either to make Oscar nominations or to vote for the winner, I can't recall.
Jessica Lange herself felt that review helped boost her chances. She wrote a personal letter to the critic, thanking him.
BTW, a critic's review evidently affected Oscar voting for Best Picture in both 2004 and 2005:
In 2004, Roger Ebert wrote and end-of-the-year review for an end-of-the-year movie, Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" --calling it a masterpiece and voila -- it became a frontrunner for everything , and won Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, etc.
In 2005, Ebert wrote an end-of-the-year review for an end-of-the year movie, "Crash," and -- to his shock -- suddenly "Crash" started overtaking the favored Best Picture nominee "Brokeback Mountain," and won the Best Picture Oscar.
Voters are influenced by the last thing they read.
Me, I think Jessica Lange is a "heavy Method actress" in the old Kim Stanley/Geraldine Page tradition, who sometimes takes things over the top(I don't like her work in "Cape Fear" for instance.) "Blue Sky" gave her a great role to do all of that -- she's playing a mentally ill woman who is loved an protected by her husband BECAUSE she is mentally ill -- but the great storyline of the movie forces her to "straighten up and fly right" as best she can to save her husband. Its the old adage : "Its not the acting that wins the Oscar. Its the character."