The 1998 Oscar season was the first one I participated in on the first Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board (UAADB). Discussions about that year still raise hackles on some of the participants who are still around.

It’s probably safe to day that there was no overwhelming favorite that year. Early speculation had anticipated a race between the dueling World War II films, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Terrence Malick’s much anticipated film of James Jones’ The Thin Red Line, which had previously been filmed a quarter century earlier to little fanfare.

Reviews of Malick’s film, which opened late, were mixed, causing skeptics to doubt that the film would fill one of the five Best Picture slots, but when the nominations were announced it was there along with Spielberg’s film, the Italian Life Is Beautiful, and two films set in Elizabethan England, Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth.

John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love was the big surprise, garnering thirteen nominations to Saving Private Ryan with seven nominations each going to the remaining three nominees.

Despite the fact that it had the most nominations – usually a sign that it is the clear favorite – Shakespeare in Love was a decided underdog in the race. Saving Private Ryan, which begins with an acclaimed long sequence depicting the horrors of the the D-Day invasion, was the expected winner and did win five Oscars leading up to the final award, including Best Director. Shakespeare had won six preceding the opening of the Best Picture envelope. A comedy over a war movie, a so-called “woman’s film” over “a man’s film”, unthinkable, but win it did.

Shakespeare also claimed both female acting honors for Gwyneth Paltrow as a young woman masquerading as a boy to get to play the female lead in one of Shakespeare’s plays and for Judi Dench as Elizabeth I. Ironically Paltrow’s toughest competition was generally thought to be Cate Blanchett as a much younger Elizabethin the film of that name.

While the Academy liked Shkhar Kapur’s Elizabethenough to give it five nominations, critics gave it tepid reviews and historians balked at the blatant inaccuracies in the script which had events happening years before they actually did.

The Elizabethcontroversy, though, was nothing compared to the Life Is Beautiful and Thin Red Line controversies.

A comedy with tragic undertones, Life Is Beautiful was universally acclaimed and writer-director-producer-star Roberto Benigni’s four nominations well received, but when Benigni started showing up at every Hollywood party and gushed all over Sophia Loren at the Golden Globes, he was beginning to wear on some nerves despite now being seen as the front-runner in the Best Actor race as well as the Best Foreign Film race. Publicists eagerly touted the fact that no performer had won for a foreign language film other than Loren nearly forty years before. It wasn’t until, in his enthusiasm, he started jumping on auditorium seats at the Oscars on the way to collect his Oscar that many of his strongest supporters began to second guess themselves. Benigni had earlier in the evening won his predicted Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

The problem with The Thin Red Line was that the released film was almost completely removed from the working script which followed the source material fairly faithfully. Director Malick had tinkered with the film so much, inserting nature shots that were really out of place in scenes where soldiers are advancing up a hill, and removing whole scenes and lines of dialogues within scenes that often confusing voiceovers were necessary to fill in the gaps. Rather than edit out his nature shots, Malick threw out whole sections of narrative including what was generally thought to be the film’s main story line involving Adrien Brody who is barely in the released film. Still, enough Academy members found it compelling enough to vote for it in those seven categories, none of which it won.

Other film Oscar liked this year included Gods and Monsters; Affliction; American History X; Central Station; One True Thing; Hilary and Jackie; Primary Colors; Little Voice; A Simple Plan; A Civil Action; The Truman Show; Pleasantville and Beloved.

An early win from the Producers Guild of America gave false hopes to supporters of Bill Condon’s observant biography of 1930s director James Whale, Gods and Monsters, but the film’s only Oscar win was for Condon’s screenplay. Neither Ian McKellen as Whale nor Lynn Redgrave, a hoot as his Hungarian housekeeper with more than a passing nod to Whale’s favorite character actress, Una O’Connor, stood a chance in wake of the popularity of Roberto Benigni and Judi Dench.

Nick Nolte received a Best Actor nod for his best reviewed performance as a mentally disturbed cop in Affliction,but it was supporting actor James Coburn as his nasty father who took home the Oscar.

Edward Norton continued to do no wrong with critics as he nabbed his second Oscar nomination, his first in the lead category, for his reformed Nazi skinhead in American History X.

Almost as well-reviewed as Life Is Beautiful, the Brazilian Central Station brought another rare Oscar nomination to a performer in a former language production, Best Actress nominee Fernanda Montenegro as a retired schoolteacher who helps a young boy search for his father after the death of his mother.

Meryl Streep added to her haul of Oscar nominations – her 11th – as a dying wife and mother in One True Thing.

Emily Watson as a world-renown cellist who develops multiple sclerosis and Rachel Griffiths as her flautist sister both picked up nominations for Hilary and Jackie, Watson in lead, Griffiths in support.

Former Best Actress winner Kathy Bates was back in the race, this time is support, as a political operator in the comedy-drama, Primary Colors. Former Best Actress nominee Brenda Blethyn was also back in the race in the supporting category as the overbearing mother the comedy with music, Little Voice.

Former Screenplay winner and Best Actor nominee Billy Bob Thornton was a nominee this time in the Supporting Actor race for the crime caper thriller, A Simple Plan.

Former Best Actor winner Robert Duvall was in the running for a supporting award as well for his litigator in A Civil Action as was former Best Supporting Actor nominee Ed Harris as a manipulative TV host in The Truman Show.

The well-received fantasy film Pleasantville about a brother and sister who become part of their favorite old time TV show when they are zapped into their TV picked up three nominations including one for Best Costume Design. On the other hand, Costume Design was the only category Oprah Winfrey’s highly publicized Beloved was able to pull off.

All films discussed have been released on DVD in the U.S.

This week’s new DVD releases include the Blu-ray debuts of Good Will Hunting and Miller’s Crossing.