Worst Best Actress Winner
Jessica Lange gives the worst performance by any Best Actress winner in the last twenty years. Winona Ryder should have won for "Little Women".
shareI liked Jessica Lange's performance in this film, but I'm not sure she should have won the Best Actress Oscar.
I was surprised that some excellent female performances in 1994 were NOT even nominated for that award that year - Sigourney Weaver in Death & The Maiden and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Mrs Parker & The Vicious Circle, for example.
I think Susan Sarandon did a great job in The Client, but don't think it was an Oscar worthy nod.
Winona Ryder (Little Women), Jodie Foster (Nell) and Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv) were all deserved nominees.
However, if I had my way, the Academy would have permitted Linda Fiorentino to be nominated and actually WIN the Best Actress Oscar of 1994, for her stunningly brilliant performance in The Last Seduction, but as the film had premiered on television just before its cinema release, this was not permitted unfortunately.
Barnes-3, thanks for your informed and intelligent post.
I love Jessica Lange and thought she did excellent work in Blue Sky. I'd go along with her Best Actress win in 1994 over a weak field of nominees, but I wish she'd beaten out meatier competition so it would feel less like a second consolation prize for losing for her definitive turn in Frances all those years ago. As for the outstanding female performances that weren't nominated that year, I completely agree with you on those three amazing performances: Linda Fiorentino (The Last Seduction), Sigourney Weaver (Death and the Maiden) and my personal favourite actress, Jennifer Jason Leigh (Mrs. Parker & the Vicious Circle). I think non-nominees like Judy Davis (The New Age), Julianne Moore (Vanya on 42nd Street), Irene Jacob (Three Colours: Red), Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) and even Meg Ryan (When a Man Loves a Woman) were all worthy of consideration too. I would like to have seen Lange battle it out with some of these stellar performances - particularly Leigh and Fiorentino.
Miranda Richardson was absolutely luminous in Tom & Viv, as always. I would not have nominated Susan Sarandon or Winona Ryder, though.
Hi Frengers, thank you very much for complimenting me on what I wrote in my post - really appreciate it. :-)
I think considering there are so many times when Oscar voters struggle to nominate in the Best Actress category, it's curious in 1994 that some truly outstanding work got passed over!
I think it's unaminously agreed worldwide that Linda Fiorentino's unbelievable work SHOULD have been allowed to have been nominated - Face To Face was broadcasted on Swedish TV before being shown in US cinemas, and Liv Ullman was nominated for Best Actress for her performance in that film... so why didn't The Last Seduction receive the same treatment?
Jennifer Jason Leigh was stunningly good in Mrs Parker & The Vicious Circle, as she is in pretty much every film in which she appears! How she hasn't been nominated for an Oscar at all in her entire career is disgusting. She was deserving of two Oscar nods in 1995, Best Actress for Georgia and Best Supporting Actress for Dolores Claiborne, in my opinion.
But it's always fun to discuss the Oscars, especially when they got it wrong!!!! ;-)
A film's first run has to be in a theater, and have opened before the end of the qualifying year. The fact that Ullman's film was on Swedish TV is irrelevant. The Academy shouldn't be criticized for following its own guidelines (and even for such a stellar performance as Fiorentino gave, why should she be an exception? It unlevels the playing field for other properly released films). Rather the blame should fall on whatever genius chose to release Last Seduction on TV first instead of in theaters.
Of the nominees, though, it certainly looks like a weak year for Best Actress but is in fact far from it, imo. I found Foster's turn to be nothing short of brilliant. Ryder was good but not nomination worthy, same with Sarandon, and I haven't seen Tom and Viv. Out of the given nominees, Foster is an easy win for me. The rest of them (save for Richardson as I can't judge that one) didn't even merit nomination, imo.
I also second whoever said Jason Leigh not even being nominated was disgusting.
If Abigail Breslin shaved her head, she'd be Stanford Blatch
I think it's unaminously agreed worldwide that Linda Fiorentino's unbelievable work SHOULD have been allowed to have been nominated - Face To Face was broadcasted on Swedish TV before being shown in US cinemas, and Liv Ullman was nominated for Best Actress for her performance in that film... so why didn't The Last Seduction receive the same treatment?
A film only has to premiere in theaters in the US to be eligible for the Oscar even if it's first shown on television outside the US. Had The Last Seduction premiered on TV in, say, Canada or the UK but then released in theaters in the US, it would have been eligible.
Another example is Enchanted April, which had been intended as a TV movie and shown on UK television in 1991 but was deemed well-produced and so was released in theaters in the US the following year, making it eligible for that year's Oscar. It ended getting three nominations -- Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design.
. share
I think it's unaminously agreed worldwide that Linda Fiorentino's unbelievable work SHOULD have been allowed to have been nominated - Face To Face was broadcasted on Swedish TV before being shown in US cinemas, and Liv Ullman was nominated for Best Actress for her performance in that film... so why didn't The Last Seduction receive the same treatment?
A film only has to premiere in theaters in the US to be eligible for the Oscar even if it's first shown on television outside the US. Had The Last Seduction premiered on TV in, say, Canada or the UK but then released in theaters in the US, it would have been eligible.
Another example is Enchanted April, which had been intended as a TV movie and shown on UK television in 1991 but was deemed well-produced and so was released in theaters in the US the following year, making it eligible for that year's Oscar. It ended getting three nominations -- Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design.
. share
Can't believe that Leigh wasn't even nominated for Mrs. Parker, and ESPECIALLY surprised she wasn't for Georgia. Sad she didn't win for Hateful Eight.
shareI agree 100%. If Linda Fiorentino had been nominated, given the weak competition, she surely would have won. By the way, where is she these days?
shareI heard Linda retired back in 2002 and is still living in New York. Not sure why she left the industry but she had a reputation as being very difficult to work with for several years, and there were always strong rumors that her bad attitude scared directors and casting agents away.
share