"Love" Conquers All! "Shakespeare" wins 7 Academy Awards in 71st year of surprises and disappointments

The minute Whoopi Goldberg walked out onto the stage dressed as Queen Elizabeth, we were reminded that the Academy Awards are always unforgettable. Not one year has gone by in which we were not surprised, overjoyed, brought to tears, and even angered at some of the night’s honors. The 71st Academy Awards, the last of the millennium, was no exception to those feelings, although some of them were somewhat unexpected. In a year dominated by Elizabethan England and World War II, the Oscar was handed out to, for the most part, awkward winners. Everyone was almost sure that Spielberg’s "Saving Private Ryan" would win picture, but that honor went to the other front-runner, "Shakespeare In Love," which in total earned 7 of the 8 Elizabethan Oscars. The other went to "Elizabeth," for achievement in make-up (we’ll discuss that later).

The Black Cauldron / **** (1985)

As far back as memory serves, Disney's animation has produced some excellent films, but none so classic as "Bambi" or "Pinocchio," of which his studio was still in its golden era. When Disney died in 1967, his last great movie was "Sleeping Beauty," and afterwards the studio fell into recession, making low-quality films with poor animation techniques and a lack of originality. It wasn't until 1983 when the studio began to return the magic of earlier years, when they presented the audience "The Fox and The Hound," a film which approached Walt's original vision of magic.

But then in 1985, the studio was under new management, and many of the original Disney animators had already left. They produced "The Black Cauldron," the first effort of their modern-day era of animated films. The film did not receive well-deserved recognition because of it's first-ever PG rating, dark and surreal landscapes, and creepy characters woven into a grizzly story.