Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1999

The Contenders:

Annette Bening: American Beauty
Hilary Swank: Boys Don’t Cry (winner)
Julianne Moore: The End of the Affair
Meryl Streep: Music of the Heart
Janet McTeer: Tumbleweeds

And a Little Bit of Soul

Film: Music of the Heart
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

There were a number of surreal moments when I compiled the various lists I use for this Oscar project. There were moments of “That got a nomination?” all through the lists. None was so surprising or more interesting to me than discovering that horror icon Wes Craven had directed Meryl Streep to an Oscar-nominated performance in a movie about as far away from Craven’s roots as possible. I’ve said in the past that I think Craven is underrated and underappreciated as a director before. If nothing else, the man birthed four horror classics (Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream). That he also directed Music of the Heart, a film about a violin teacher working with inner city kids, only adds to my thesis.

But, we take the good with the bad in this film. Meryl Streep is an obvious positive, as are the presences of Aiden Quinn, Cloris Leachman, and Angela Bassett. The downside is that it also contains Gloria Estefan, which means there will almost certainly be Gloria Estefan (with or without her Miami Sound Machine) providing the title track and more. I should probably try to look positively on this as well. At least it’s not Maria Carey. Evidently, getting Elizabeth Pena was too much to ask for.