Oscar bait success of summer blockbusters like "Jaws" and "Star Wars" (both of which had also been nominated for Best Picture), independent filmmakers refined Carr's methods of exploiting the Oscars. Merchant Ivory, who produced lavish costume dramas, often based on novels by Henry James or E. M. Forster, began to time their releases to align with the awards season. Their 1985 adaptation of Forster's "A Room with a View" won three of the eight Oscars it was nominated for. By 1991 the modern film-release calendar, in which studios released the movies they had the highest Oscar hopes for in autumn and December,
Oscar and Lucinda (film) Oscar and Lucinda (film) Oscar and Lucinda is a 1997 British-Australian romantic drama film directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring Cate Blanchett, Ralph Fiennes, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson. It is based on the 1988 Booker Prize-winning novel "Oscar and Lucinda" by Peter Carey. In March 1998, the film was nominated at the Academy Awards for the Best Costume Design. As a child living in Australia, Lucinda Leplastrier is given a Prince Rupert's Drop which sparks a lifelong obsession with glass. Lucinda's parents die and she is left a wealthy heiress after her guardians sell off the vast farmland that