Sunday, March 21, 1999
Best supporting trivia
BY JACK GARNER
Gannett News Service
Here's a round-up of Oscar trivia and curious facts and figures for the 71st annual Academy Awards:
• The presence of Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line marks the first time two World War II combat films took aim at each other since 1949 when 12 O'Clock High faced off against Battleground only to lose to All the King's Men.
• For the first time since 1984, all five best picture nominees are period pictures. (Those were The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in the Heart, A Soldier's Story and Amadeus, which was the winner.)
• Miramax Pictures leads all distributors with 23 nominations, one more than the 22 it had in 1994, the year of Pulp Fiction. Miramax's Oscar horses include Shakespeare in Love, Life Is Beautiful, Children of Heaven, Little Voice and Velvet Goldmine. And because the studio just acquired the Spanish foreign-language nominee, The Grandfather, they have 24 nominations, ex-post-facto.
• Shakespeare in Love's 13 nominations falls one short of the 14 earned by All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997), and puts it in the select company of Gone With the Wind (1939), From Here to Eternity (1953), Mary Poppins (1964), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) and Forrest Gump (1994).
• The nominations for Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, who play Queen Elizabeth in different films, mark the first time two actors earned nods for playing the same character in two different films in the same year. (Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were nominated last year for playing the same character - but it was in the same film, Titanic.)
• Foreigners reign supreme this year, including a number from Australia. They are actors Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Rachel Griffiths, director Peter Weir (The Truman Show), composer David Hirschfelder (Elizabeth) and producer Grant Hill (The Thin Red Line). Writer Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show) is from New Zealand.
• Not since 1976 when three foreign actors were nominated in best acting categories have foreign actors made such a strong showing. This year, there are two Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful) and Montenegro (Central Station). In 1976, the nominees were Giancarlo Giannini (Seven Beauties), Liv Ullmann (Face to Face) and Marie-Christine Barrault (Cousin, Cousine).
• Ms. Montenegro is only the second South American actor to earn a nomination. Her predecessor was Norma Aleandro (Gaby, a True Story) in 1987.
• The seven nominations for Life Is Beautiful is a record for a foreign-language film. The previous best were the six each for Das Boot (1982) and Fanny and Alexander (1983).
• Life Is Beautiful is in select company as a best-picture nominee. The only other foreign-language films so honored are Grand Illusion (1938), Z (1969), The Emigrants (1972), Cries and Whispers (1973) and Il Postino (1995).
And the Oscar goes to ...
Best supporting trivia
Kazan should be honored for his work, not actions
Sunday show seems to be inspired idea
Oscar.com
Will we choose cages or classrooms?
One of the faces of AIDS
Parents investigate police shooting
Ditka coaches 10,000 Catholics
Race St. tower to be razed
Turfway tries to get untracked
Tuxes can't hide bawdy behavior
Tigerlilies play Austin at last
Luken undercuts GOP's optimism
UK fans score basketball tickets
Politician helping Bush in Ky.
Boone Co. developments move forward
Cincinnati Country Day School to rebuild bigger
Governor's Award honors arts innovator LoveLarkin
Historic church gets ready for 150th year
Lebanon hires Laidlaw buses
Loss can't dim fervor for Mason fans
Maybe a poem is just a poem
Newport native son unknown
Sharonville reviving tie to railroad
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