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WILL we ever forget that Oscar-perfect performance Gwyneth Paltrow
gave for Shakespeare in Love?
Movie devotees, have you ever witnessed an actress
so in charge of her craft? Has any thespian – male or female –
in the rich history of Hollywood tumbled so brilliantly from one highly-charged
emotion to the next: from high elation to utter despair; tears and a trembling
lip one second replaced, seemingly at the flick of some master switch we
mere mortals cannot even begin to grasp, with sparkling eyes awash with
a love for all humankind the next.
What an acceptance speech!
Thank Charlton Heston the voting members of the Academy of Pictures, Science
and other Motions gave us a chance to see what Paltrow (pictured above
with her co-star, Joseph Fiennes (pronounced Joseph) could do
with a role far more demanding than the cutsie, lovestruck princess-perfect
she played in the best film of 1998.
And has there ever been a movie more rewarding of the Best Flick gong?
This particular reviewer could be churlish and point to the reported $15million
the backers of Shakespeare in Love spent promoting the flick in the
leadup to Oscar night on March 21. Be that as it may, the general consensus
among all The Bug's writers - and not just Australia's leading fillum
reviewer – was that Shakespeare in Love more than held its own
against recent Best Flick winners, such as Titanic, The English Patient
and Braveheart.
The Bug's rugby league writer, Basher Brown, summed up the combined
feeling thus: "Shakespeare was twice as good – because it was
only half as long as all that other mind-numbing crap."
Added political analysis Rufus Badinage: "And at least it was entertaining.
Or so I was told."
The Bug team was also elated when Italian Roberto
Benigni got to jump up and down on his chair when his creation,
Life is Beautiful, firstly won best foreign fillum and then scored
him the Best Actor gong.
It was the first time in Oscar night history that a male actor had ever
won the top award just for playing himself - while speaking Italian.
Naturally, this short review of the big night would be incomplete without
making some mention of the snub voting Academy members gave to that multi-nominee,
The Thin Red Line.
After seeing Terrence Malick's 171-minute tribute to the horrors of
war, we were, quite frankly, appalled.
It had been some 20 years since Malick's last fillum, the critically acclaimed
Days of Heaven, and we at The Bug are hoping that his next
hiatus will be twice as long.
