March 24, 2003
Surveying the Oscar Aftermath
First of all, congratulations to my esteemed colleague Derek Miner for winning the prediction face-off. I'm usually not very good at predicting, and this year just continued to prove that. I suppose there's such a thing as being too close to the buzz, however correct or erroneous it is.
As far as the lot of winners of the 75th Academy Awards go, there were only two wins that could be considered real shocks--but, then again, those are two more than in most years. And, no, one of them isn't (in my mind, at least) Adrien Brody's Best Actor victory for THE PIANIST; I thought the race was ultimately between him and the longtime co-front-runner (with Jack Nicholson) Daniel Day-Lewis. The biggest one was, however, PIANIST-related (yes, crass sort-of-pun intended): Roman Polanski's victory in the Directing category. Kudos to the Academy for being a bit wiser than I thought and looking past his non-film-related indiscretions to recognize a worthy achievement--and for not going with Miramax's aggressive guilt-trip campaign for Martin Scorsese. The other shocker was the Original Song trophy going to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" from 8 MILE, which was, rather ironically, the only one of the five nominees to not be performed live during the program; presenter Barbra Streisand was audibly, visibly shocked when she read the card in the envelope. How unfortunate it was that Marshall Mathers wasn't in attendance; La Babs handing an Oscar to Slim Shady? What a clip for the ages that would've been.
Despite the zero-for-ten showing of GANGS OF NEW YORK--which shows that a promo push means nothing if no one really thinks all that highly of the film to begin with--the Weinstein campaign still reaped huge dividends. Just as expected, CHICAGO emerged the big winner of the night, taking Best Picture and Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones); and FRIDA won two statues, for Best Makeup and Original Score. However, with the FRIDA wins and four of CHICAGO's (Sound, Costume Design, Art Direction and Film Editing) being on the minor end of the spectrum, and THE PIANIST's three awards (Adapted Screenplay being the other) all being major ones, perhaps signs point to the Academy growing tired of Harvey's hardball. Even after winning the Screen Actors Guild Award, CHICAGO's Renée Zellweger couldn't parlay that into a victory over eventual Best Actress winner Nicole Kidman of THE HOURS; not to mention voters didn't go for the film's one new tune, "I Move On," in the Original Song category.
But Kidman's win was hardly surprising, as her award and the Supporting Actor--to ADAPTATION.'s Chris Cooper--one went to the contender pegged early on as the favorite. An, ultimately, as with most Oscar shows, the scaled-down ceremony was characterized by the general lack of surprise. Well-liked foreign films TALK TO HER and SPIRITED AWAY took home trophies (for Original Screenplay and Animated Feature, respectively). THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS picked up a couple of technical trophies. Steve Martin was an affable, funny host. The official pre-show was a huge snooze. There was a cheesy segment where an animated character co-presented an award. There was a big dance number (though I suppose it was surprising that the number--the performance of "I Move On"--was actually decent). The parade of Oscar-winning actors was every bit as time-consuming and generally uneventful as the similar one the Academy staged in 1998. (Martin wasn't kidding when he said there would be a montage of people you thought were dead but weren't.) Even Michael Moore's instantly infamous acceptance of the Documentary Feature trophy for BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE wasn't the shock it's being made out to be. Did anyone really expect the outspoken director to not provide a sound bite that would be destined to join Vanessa Redgrave and Sacheen Littlefeather footage in future Oscar retrospective clip shows?
Maybe the 76th Oscars, which will mark the new annual tradition of taking place at the end of February, will hold more Polanski-like surprises. After all, with the truncated campaign season, it could be more of a free-for-all than what we've gotten used to in recent years...
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