decent film but Oscar worthy?

Rating: 6/10 (3 March 2007)

The film has been nominated in 1989 for 7 Oscars and it won the Oscar for best cinematography. It also won 13 other awards and was nominated for 10.
!! I don't understand that it was nominated for best film and Die Hard, a 1988 blockbuster wasn't - now that we're talking cop hero movies. !!
Anyway, the only other movie from the hand of director Alan Parker that I remember watching was "The Life of David Gale" and to those out there who haven't seen it yet I strongly recommend not to witness this one and only Spacey nightmare because you will be sorry!
Now let's focus on the good aspects. I still gave Mississippi burning a 6 because there are some powerful lines in the movie and the acting by Gene Hackman is outstanding. Frances McDormand looks really hot as usual (cfr. the major's secretary in Miller's Crossing - aaauwwwww aaauw aauw aaaaaaauuuuww babyyyyy !!!!).
Another Ku Klux Klan tale seemed to me rather unoriginal at the beginning but there were some nice twists in the film which made it well worthy to be keeping track of what would happen next. I checked the movie on IMDb before I zapped to the right channel (as always) to have a look at the rating (7,5). I was so surprised by a promising cast (Willem Dafoe - Platoon, American Psycho, Brad Dourif - One flew over the cuckoos nest, Lee Ermey - Full Metal Jacket) and a whole list of "official" appreciations. However it turned out to be not what I expected, which was obviously too much.