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The first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol and Seattle city hall, PubliCola has been called a “must-read” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and a hot “New Media Mover and Shaker” by Seattle Magazine—which also cited our own Erica C. Barnett as the city's No. 1 news nerd.

Last Night

Arts & Culture   March 16, 2010 at 10:15 am Josh Feit

I spoke at a cool event last night. Central Cinema hosted a revised version of the 1990 Academy Awards (which judged the movies of 1989.)

The 20/20 Awards, as they were called, were organized to set the record straight by showing how inaccurate the annual Academy Awards are—bound by fleeting trends and myopic prejudices of the day.

I spoke about Roger & Me, which won 20/20′s “Best Documentary.”

Roger & Me—relevant today with its focus on corporate power, heavy job losses, and current bailout poster child GM—wasn’t even nominated in 1990.

They serve booze at Central Cinema, so I’m not exactly sure what I said, but I did get a sweet note this morning from Korby Sears (the smart fellow from Seattle School who came up with and organized the event), referencing my apparent comments on  “the economic arc of the last 20 years.” Whoa.

I think 20/20 has potential, and I hope it grows into an annual event for Seattle.

I’ve posted a list of the 1990 winners and last night’s winners below the fold.

For a full list of the 1990 nominees and the 20/20 nominees, go here.

Best Picture

1990: Driving Miss Daisy
20/20: Crimes and Misdemeanors

Best Director
1990: Oliver Stone, Born of the 4th of July
20/20: Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing

Best Actor

1990: Daniel Day Lewis, My Left Foot
20/20: Daniel Day Lewis, My Left Foot

Best Actress

1990: Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy
20/20: Helen Mirren, The Cook, The Thief, The Wife, and Her Lover

Best Supporting Actor
1990: Denzel Washington, Glory
20/20: Martin Landau, Crimes & Misdemeanors

Best Supporting Actress
1990: Brenda Fricker, My Left Foot
20/20: Laura San Giacomo, Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Original Screenplay
1990: Dead Poets Society
20/20: Crimes & Misdemeanors

Adapted Screenplay
1990: Alfrd Uhry, Driving Miss Daisy
20/20: Gus Van Sant & Daniel Yost, Drugstore Cowboy

Best Song
1990: “Under the Sea,” Little Mermaid, by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman
20/20: “Fight the Power,” Do the Right Thing, Public Enemy

Best Documentary
1990: Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt
20/20: Roger & Me




  • http://twitter.com/pf3 Paul

    I love this, this is really clever.

  • MovieNerd

    Great idea — unfortunately I think whomever decided the awards screwed up (again I guess) on best picture. While I would agree that Crimes and Misdemeanors (the 2010 winner) is a greatly underappreciated film, it is not one of Woddy Allen/'s best, and in my view one of the least deserving of the new nominees. I would have voted for any other film except perhaps When Harry Met Sally over Crimes and Misdemeanors. Personally I might have chosen Drugstore Cowboy.

  • tpn

    Josh– have you told Michael Moore about your pro-WTO dispositions? Did you tell your audience?

  • Doug

    This is only interesting if they tell us what they would've picked bak then. Is the point that time tells us better who wa good or did tehy simply disagree with the academy. That is an important distinction.

  • Timothy

    I like the concept of the 20/20 Awards a lot, but I think focusing on how the Academy “got it wrong” isn't the best approach to this thing.

    Rather, as they say on their site, the 20/20 Awards use “Time and Perspective” to give what amounts to a “new” award, not a fixing of the past Award.

    The Academy focuses on a data point that is relevant today, right now, and is measured in a democratic way. There's something to be gleaned by what wins today and to understand why.

    The 20/20 Awards should focus on something else; it's not about correcting mistakes, it's about incorporating new data using Time and Perspective.

    That said, but as @3 has shown us, even Time and Perspective don't guarantee that these awards will “get it right” because subjective awards are always biased to the influences of the voters. They never will “get it right” because there's no such thing.

  • Josh Feit

    I don't know Michael Moore, so I haven't had a chance to tell him that I think—given that transnational corporations operate without concern to national borders (thus transnational)—the world need an international body to regulate them. (By way of an analogy, the EPA sucks when it caters to corporations, but I'm glad its there, so we can get to reforming it.)

    No, I didn't tell the audience that I think the WTO is a good idea.