1995 Endy Awards

These are the 1995 Endy Awards, wherein I pretend to give out maneki-neko statues to the best in that year in film. Awards for many other years can be found in the Endy Awards Index. Eligibility is determined by imdb date and by whether or not I've seen the movie in question. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order and the winners are bolded. And the Endy goes to. . .

Best Picture:

1. Ballet
2. Dead Man
3. Fallen Angels
4. Good Men, Good Women
5. Whisper of the Heart

Best Director:

1. Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man
2. Wong Kar-wai, Fallen Angels
3. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Good Men, Good Women
4. Tsui Hark, Love in the Time of Twilight
5. Yoshifumi Kondō, Whisper of the Heart

Very close race for the top prize this year, as Good Men, Good Women might be Hou Hsiao-hsien's best movie. But Dead Man is simply one of my all-time favorite films. We discussed it way back on Episode 2 of The George Sanders Show.

Best Actor:

1. Johnny Depp, Dead Man
2. Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fallen Angels
3. Robert deNiro, Heat
4. Colin Firth, Pride & Prejudice
5. Morgan Freeman, Se7en

This is DeNiro's first Endy nomination, but I suspect it won't be his last. Depp previously won for 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean. Firth's performance is deservedly considered definitive. For those who say it a performance in a TV miniseries and not a film, I say "Pffffbbbbtt."

Also receiving votes: Ralph Fiennes (Strange Days), Leslie Cheung (The Chinese Feast), Denzel Washington (Devil in a Blue Dress and Crimson Tide), Ian McKellen (Richard III), Stephen Chow (A Chinese Odyssey), Chris Farley (Tommy Boy) and Lau Ching-wan (Loving You).

Best Actress:

1. Alicia Silverstone, Clueless
2. Annie Shizuka Inoh, Good Men, Good Women
3. Parker Posey, Party Girl
4. Jennifer Ehle, Pride & Prejudice
5. Nicole Kidman, To Die For

Also receiving votes: Julienne Moore (Safe), Charlie Yeung (Love in the Time of Twilight), Julie Delpy (Before Sunrise), Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility), Lili Taylor (The Addiction), Catherine Keener (Living in Oblivion), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Georgia), Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) and Elizabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas).

Supporting Actor:

1. Kenny Bee, The Chinese Feast
2. Dominique Pinon, City of Lost Children
3. Gary Farmer, Dead Man
4. Don Cheadle, Devil in a Blue Dress
5. Chris Eigeman, Kicking and Screaming

Supporting Actress:

1. Christine Taylor, The Brady Bunch Movie
2. Charlie Yeung, Fallen Angels
3. Chloë Sevigny, Kids
4. Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite
5. Gina Gershon, Showgirls

Farmer is an obvious pick, of course. In Supporting Actress, this is one of the rare times when the Oscars and I agree on an acting winner. Sorvino really is quite wonderful, it's a shame she never got another role half this good again.

Original Screenplay:

1. Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man
2. Wong Kar-wai, Fallen Angels
3. Noah Baumbach, Kicking and Screaming
4. Tsui Hark & Sharon Hui, Love in the Time of Twilight
5. Daisy von Scherler Meyer & Harry Birckmeyer, Party Girl

If the screenplay consisted of nothing other than "Stupid fucking white man" it'd probably still win the Endy.

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Amy Heckerling, Clueless
2. Chu Tien-wen, Good Men, Good Women
3. Andrew Davies, Pride & Prejudice
4. Emma Thompson, Sense & Sensibility
5. Hayao Miyazaki, Whisper of the Heart

That's right: three Jane Austen adaptations. There's a fourth among my Unseen Film nominees as well. There was something in the air in 1995. But the Endy goes to Chu Tien-wen, who previously won in 1997 for Flowers of Shanghai.

Non-English Language Film:

1. The Blade (Tsui Hark)
2. Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai)
3. Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
4. Love in the Time of Twilight (Tsui Hark)
5. Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondō)

Just missing is Pedro Costa's Casa de Lava, which also just missed out in Original Screenplay and Film Editing.

Documentary Film:

1. Ballet (Frederick Wiseman)
2. The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman)
3. Unzipped (Douglas Keeve)

This is Wiseman's second win and eighth nomination. He won in 2014 for National Gallery.

Animated Film:

1. Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii)
2. Toy Story (John Lasseter)

Unseen Film:

1. La Cérémonie (Claude Chabrol)
2. Mabarosi (Koreeda Hirokazu)
3. Persuasion (Roger Michell)
4. Underground (Emir Kusturica)
5. The White Balloon (Jafar Panahi)

Also receiving votes: Ulysses's Gaze (Theo Angelopolous), Love Letter (Shunji Iwai), La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz), Cyclo (Tran Anh Hung), The Flower of My Secret (Pedro Almodóvar), and Village of the Damned (John Carpenter).

Film Editing:

1. The Blade
2. Dead Man
3. Fallen Angels
4. Good Men, Good Women
5. Heat

Tsui Hark reaches the apotheosis of the fast-cutting action movie, a full decade before Hollywood begins to (badly) imitate the style.

Cinematography:

1. The Blade
2. Casa de Lava
3. Dead Man
4. Fallen Angels
5. Good Men, Good Women

What can I say? I'm a sucker for fish-eyes.

Also receiving votes: Seven, Dead Presidents, Strange Days, City of Lost Children, Heat, Nixon, Shanghai Triad, Ballet, Sense and Sensibility.

Art Direction:

1. The Blade
2. Casino
3. City of Lost Children
4. Dead Man
5. Pride & Prejudice

Costume Design:

1. The Blade
2. Casino
3. A Chinese Odyssey
4. Dead Man
5. Sense & Sensibility

Everything Sharon Stone wears.

Make-up:

1. The Blade
2. Casino
3. City of Lost Children
4. A Chinese Odyssey
5. Species

Original Score:

1. City of Lost Children
2. Dead Man
3. Friday
4. Toy Story
5. Whisper of the Heart

Adapted Score:

1. Clueless
2. Dead Presidents
3. Devil in a Blue Dress
4. Kicking and Screaming
5. Kids

If it was "Adapted Song" this would easily go to Whisper of the Heart, as it is, "Country Roads" is almost enough to get it nominated in both categories.

Sound:

1. Casino
2. Dead Man
3. Good Men, Good Women
4. Heat
5. Seven

That telephone ringing.

Sound Editing:

1. The Blade
2. Braveheart
3. Crimson Tide
4. GoldenEye
5. Heat

Visual Effects:

1. Apollo 13
2. Babe
3. A Chinese Odyssey
4. Love in the Time of Twilight
5. Species

That'll do, pig.