The words that I'm hearing most about the first two installments of the Lord of the Rings trilogy indicate that we may be in the privileged position of watching one of the great events of cinema history as it happens.
But, no matter how good The Two Towers is (and I have not seen it yet, so I cannot speak with firsthand knowledge), I don't believe Peter Jackson will come home from this year's Oscars with anything more than token awards for technical achievement.
The words that I'm hearing most about the first two installments of the Lord of the Rings trilogy indicate that we may be in the privileged position of watching one of the great events of cinema history as it happens.
But, no matter how good The Two Towers is (and I have not seen it yet, so I cannot speak with firsthand knowledge), I don't believe Peter Jackson will come home from this year's Oscars with anything more than token awards for technical achievement.
Frustrating? Perhaps, but in the doddering, squinting eyes of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it makes a strange and bizarre sort of sense.
The three Lord of the Rings films were filmed, and intended to be screened, as a trilogy. My expectation is that The Two Towers, as the middle installment, will be on the receiving end of many comments about how "it cannot stand alone as a movie." In many ways, the first film had the same issue, and I think it very likely that the Academy (silly shortsighted wankers, or SSW for short) will use this as the deciding factor in whether or not to give anything above technical and effects awards for The Two Towers.
Think of it this way.
Imagine that Fellowship of the Ring had received Oscars for Best Picture or Best Director. So what happens if, a year later, the next film in the trilogy is a better picture or is better directed than the first? There is an appalling sort of skewed logic at work here: if the first one won for Best Director or Best Picture, and the next ones are still better movies, the voters of the Academy will feel pressured to award those Oscars yet again to Peter Jackson.
The voters of the Academy, SSWs that they are, probably don't take well to this kind of pressure.
Instead, if The Two Towers proves to be of the same caliber of technical, visual, and emotional experience as Fellowship of the Ring was, look for them to nod yet again in the direction of technical Oscars.
Look for the Academy to play the waiting game once again, to wait and see if the third installment of the trilogy, The Return of the King, holds true to the known quality of the first (and the rumored quality of the second). If it is, I think it's safe to expect The Return of the King to have a free-for-all at the following Oscars ceremony. The Academy is likely to treat The Return of the King as a combined entry for all three movies, and give awards more truly based on the accomplishments of the trilogy than for the single movie.
It's probably not fair, but it's realistic.
Meanwhile, tonight we'll screen the super-extendo-cut of Fellowship of the Ring at my house, in preparation for seeing The Two Towers on opening night tomorrow night.
Ahh, the joys of Oscar season. 'Tis the season to prognosticate.
]]>Side note #1: Competition and Academy apologies: Martin Scorsese's new film, Gangs Of New York, is being released in prime-time Oscar season to a lot of industry hype. Bear in mind that Scorsese has never won a director or Best Picture Oscar, despite his nominations for Raging Bull, Last Temptation of Christ, and GoodFellas. While at this point, one might think that all he has to do is turn in a respectable performance to get a directing Oscar, the same did not prove true of Robert Altman in 2001. If GoNY is critically successful, I'll expect Scorsese to finally pick up his Oscar this year, with the justification that Peter Jackson has another movie coming out next year and can wait one more year to be rewarded for the whole trilogy.
Side note #2: I've seen rumors that New Line Cinemas is starting to mount an in-industry promotional campaign to get Andy Serkis an Oscar for his voiceover/body model work as Gollum. This is an uphill battle to say the least, because Serkis himself never appears on-screen, but an interesting tack to take on their part.)
I'll feel a bit better about my choices after I get to see a couple more movies, but I'm going to talk about all this in my usual pseudo-knowledgeable way. Hey, I pay enough in movie rental fees to finance a low-budget film or two; with that and a tiny dose of misplaced chutzpah, you too can be a movie critic!
Enjoy.
I'll feel a bit better about my choices after I get to see a couple more movies, but I'm going to talk about all this in my usual pseudo-knowledgeable way. Hey, I pay enough in movie rental fees to finance a low-budget film or two; with that and a tiny dose of misplaced chutzpah, you too can be a movie critic!
Enjoy.
A Beautiful Mind
Gosford Park
In the Bedroom
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Moulin Rouge
I've seen three of these so far. We haven't made it to A Beautiful Mind yet, and we haven't yet made the drive to Birmingham to see In the Bedroom, though I've done a significant amount of reading on each. I want to see A Beautiful Mind before I make up my mind about it, but it's going to have to absolutely blow me away to beat what I've already seen. I loved Gosford Park but I think it fits better somewhere else (see Director). I think Moulin Rouge's honor is in the nomination; it was a lovely film and a beautifully-produced musical, but I don't believe it has a prayer of actually winning. For Best Picture I ask myself what movie will be remembered as the hallmark of the year, and for me it's an obvious choice—LotR. Do I think it will actually get it? No. I think the Academy will choose A Beautiful Mind for two reasons: one, that LotR is the first of three, and what if the rest of the series doesn't live up to the promise of the first installment…and two, the Academy's notorious discomfort in rewarding sci-fi/fantasy movies in anything except technical achievement categories.
Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind
Sean Penn, I Am Sam
Will Smith, Ali
Denzel Washington, Training Day
Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom
Normally I have a stronger opinion in this category, but I think that this year the race is probably already decided. I actually haven't seen any of these movies yet; to be honest, I have no desire to see three of them. Sean Penn and Will Smith have the dubious honor of apparently being the best parts of otherwise-not-Oscar-caliber movies, which I think hurts their chances tremendously. I can't speak for Denzel Washington's performance, but I have to admit that for a movie that didn't get a lot of buzz, this nomination smacks of an apology renomination for the fact that he did NOT win a Best Actor statuette for The Hurricane, a movie which was deserving but had the bad fortune of being released in the same year as American Beauty. The Academy often uses Best Actor/Actress roles to reward movies that don't win Best Picture, and thus this tier of awards often goes to deserving actors who worked in smaller, less-publicized pictures. The safe choice is going to be Russell Crowe, but I think it would be a good idea for Tom Wilkinson to have an acceptance speech ready.
Halle Berry, Monster's Ball
Judi Dench, Iris
Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge
Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom
Renée Zellweger, Bridget Jones's Diary
A thoroughly top-notch category this year: a group of women who actually went out on a limb and took mentally and physically demanding roles. I honestly don't have a prediction about this one. Everything I've heard about Sissy Spacek's performance tells me that seeing it will almost certainly tip the scales in her favor; the reviews I've seen indicate it's a performance of a lifetime. And yet…and yet…there's Nicole Kidman in a role that must've seemed madness when she first signed on ("you're going to do a … rock musical?"), and Renée Zellweger picking up a surprise nomination for a comedic role. Buzz says Sissy Spacek, history says Judi Dench (who undeservedly picked up a supporting actress win a couple of years ago, damaging her chances now in a real role), but I have to admit that I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that Nicole Kidman gets rewarded for taking a big, big risk and having it pay off in spades.
No commentary. Don't know enough to spout intelligently.
Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Helen Mirren, Gosford Park
Maggie Smith, Gosford Park
Marisa Tomei, In the Bedroom
Kate Winslet, Iris
Hey, does anyone besides me remember Marisa Tomei? She surprised everyone by walking out with an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny and hasn't made much noise since. I've heard little about her performance in In the Bedroom; I'll say more after I've seen the movie. I think Kate Winslet will probably be overlooked; Iris saw little distribution in the States, and she's been part of two movies recently (Titanic and Quills) in which her performances were excellent and the movies rewarded. Unfortunately, I think that the ensemble nature of Gosford Park will split Mirren and Smith's votes, and that's a pity—both of them (Maggie Smith especially!) chewed up the scenery in Gosford Park and it was a joy to watch. I think the safe vote will go to Jennifer Connelly, both as a nod to her solid performance in A Beautiful Mind and as an apology to ignoring her stellar performance in Requiem For A Dream. If you haven't seen it, it was a performance whose quality was so blatant, so obvious, so thorough, that her losing out an Oscar to anyone was a travesty. I think Jennifer Connelly gets the apology Oscar, despite the fact that I think Maggie Smith's performance is probably more worthy.
Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind
Ridley Scott, Black Hawk Down
Robert Altman, Gosford Park
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
David Lynch, Mulholland Drive
For once, I'm not picking someone to get an Oscar, I'm picking against someone. I'll be various shades of happy with whoever wins this category, as long as that person isn't Ridley Scott. My next least favorite is probably going to be Ron Howard, mostly because I believe that A Beautiful Mind is going to clean up in other categories but partly because I suspect that the direction is NOT the best part of the movie. On the other hand, I can make very good cases for Robert Altman, Peter Jackson, and David Lynch. Robert Altman has never won an Oscar, and I think it possible that this may be the film where they finally decide to reward him for some brilliant past work (in addition to masterminding an incredibly complex and difficult film that would have fallen apart under any other director). The same, to a slightly lesser extent, could be said for Peter Jackson. I believe him to be greatly responsible for the coherency of LotR, but I also think it likely that the Academy will choose to give Best Picture to A Beautiful Mind and give Jackson Best Director as a sort of consolation prize. The dark horse (pun fully intended) is David Lynch, whose filmmaking is brilliant surrealism, but which is also probably too outré for the Academy to feel comfortable rewarding him. They are, at heart, conservative; I think for Lynch the honor will have to be in the nomination.
This category raises the most ire in me. See below.
Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie), France
Elling, Norway
Once Upon a Time in India (Lagaan), India
No Man's Land, Bosnia and Herzegovina
El Hijo de la novia (Son of the Bride), Argentina
Okay, we have an obvious, obvious omission here. Would someone please tell me where The Princess and the Warrior is? Aside from that annoyance, I'll state that I'm glad to see that the Academy was able to get over their hauteur long enough to nominate the delightful and charming Amélie, the Cannes audience favorite that was snubbed by the judges for not being 'serious enough.' Despite all that, I look for No Man's Land to pick this one up; it's well-known, it's European, and it has thoroughly-depressing subject matter. That's practically a requirement for this category. Heaven forbid someone rent something with subtitles and expect to laugh. Aurgh. I hate to see Amélie get snubbed by both Cannes and the Academy, but the safe bet is that it's going to happen—despite the fact that it's going to be remembered as the foreign movie of the year.
What the hell is Black Hawk Down doing in the Best Director category when Memento is not there? I was disgusted to see how little recognition Memento received. Now that I've seen Christopher Nolan's first film, Following, there is absolutely no doubt left in my mind that Memento was no fluke. Why is it that the Academy feels the need to wait to reward directors later in their careers? The concept of an 'apology Oscar' is a well-known one, and I think may well come into play here when Nolan does his next movie. I think had Memento had the budget or studio backing to be released in Oscar season, instead of being left to languish in the summer, that we'd see a lot more nominations for what is quite possibly one of the most best and most inventive movies I've seen in quite some time.
Would someone please give Randy Newman a Best Song Oscar so the poor man can retire? He must just hate going to the Oscars by now; what an exercise in futility it's been for him.
]]>I'm still going to try to hack together a page that looks something like this page for the users whose browsers hork on valid 4.0 code. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it, though. But surely there's some sort of way.Saw Traffic tonight. That completes the list of all five Best Picture nominees. My picks, in order of preference:
I'm still going to try to hack together a page that looks something like this page for the users whose browsers hork on valid 4.0 code. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it, though. But surely there's some sort of way.Saw Traffic tonight. That completes the list of all five Best Picture nominees. My picks, in order of preference:
Surprisingly, EB and Traffic had the same director. I thought Traffic was a much, much better film, though. I question why Erin Brockovich received a Best Picture nomination; I don't think it was deserving. Sure, it was a good way to spend a couple of hours, but I can think of several movies that were better.
I really think Gladiator will probably win the Best Picture award. It seems the Academy has a fondness for epics, but for once I am not inclined to agree with that leaning. I think Gladiator had a lot of potential, but it was painfully inaccurate (historically speaking) and the tiger CGI at the end just really made my skin crawl.
For Best Picture, I expect just that—perfection. Few movies even come close. Crouching Tiger is as close as anyone got this year. I just don't think the Academy has the guts to give a Best Picture award to a non-English movie.
But oh, how I would love to be wrong.
Tomorrow: more tinkering with the site. Now that everything works, I want to clean up some of the directory structure. It'll make me happy. For now, though, sleep.
]]>