Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 29, 1991 TAG: 9103290121
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Movie people are amazing. They learn lines for a living, but they can't read a cue card on Oscar night. At Monday's Academy Awards ceremony, presenter Robert De Niro squinted at the prompter, and Kim Basinger appeared huffy and impatient. She deserves the poor sportsmanship award for looking like she would rather have been anyplace else - and making us feel the same way.
Give Oscar winner Kevin Costner the Alfred Hitchcock It's-Only-A-Movie Award for observing that "Dances With Wolves" isn't "as important as the rest of the world's situation where it sits." And where is that, Kevin?
Billy Crystal is a funny guy - so why didn't he know that Gulf War jokes are stale by now? We can forgive Bob Hope, but come on, Billy.
You have to give the show credit for some kind of outrageous stretch of taste, though. Only in America would Madonna proposition Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf on national TV.
In her favor, Madonna turned up the voltage on a fairly bland show when she vamped the Oscar-winning Stephen Sondheim tune "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" from "Dick Tracy."
Typically, the awards varied in their fairness and logic.
Whoopi Goldberg for supporting actress in "Ghost"? I'll buy that. She provided some damage control on a movie that would have been intolerably maudlin without her lively comic performance.
Joe Pesci for best supporting actor in "Goodfellas"? Absolutely! Any other choice would have been felonious.
A best-actor Oscar for Jeremy Irons, who played Baron von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune"? An unassailable choice. Absolutely correct.
The surprise of the evening was the best-actress Oscar that went to Kathy Bates for her portrayal of a psychotic romance novel fan in "Misery." It was a fair if unpredictable choice.
No one was surprised when Costner took the top honors - best director and best picture - for "Dances With Wolves." But those awards should have gone to director Martin Scorsese for "Goodfellas."
Scorsese, a brilliant filmmaker, was beaten by another actor-turned-director in 1980: Robert Redford won for "Ordinary People," triumphing over Scorsese's much superior "Raging Bull." If Scorsese is bitter toward actors-turned-directors, who could blame him? The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will probably wait until Scorsese is 90 and give him a life achievement award.
As for the most astonishing award: best original screenplay to Bruce Joel Rubin for "Ghost"?
Get outta here!
by CNB