PREDICTIONS FOR THE 73RD ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS: One Award Will Be Truly Deserved.Mar 20 '01 (Updated Mar 23 '01) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line With the exception of awards related to ERIN BROCKOVICH possibly, few other winners will be remembered. The Academy did not nominate the best film of 2000: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM.
It has been some years since I have been struck so strongly by a lack of interest in the Oscars. Ten days out, neither the public nor the media was blazing with the normal excitement one would expect over the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. Can it be, alas, that years of hype for generally pretty bad Academy nominated films is creating at last ennui on the part of public about Oscar? Or is it just that, contrary to the rule, a couple of top nominated films were released six months ago or more. Certainly the looming writers strike, and even the towering recession we face in the First Year of Our Bush II, must dampen public relations fireworks usually set off by the Film Industry and the media itself. Still, at least one . . . perhaps two . . . good films were nominated this year. As I suggested last year, and proceeded to demonstrate, picking the winners is a game for mugs. The most cynical and calculating critics often do the best at this particular handicapping. Anyone who really loves movies as a popular form of Art is at a real disadvantage. It is a question of leaning to the right and firing to the left at Sunset in order to hit a target. From the beginning of the Awards in 1927, when a star might invite a whole board of judges over for dinner just before the vote, through the days of immense Studio power shown in full page Ads in the trade papers, until today when the "independent" giants Miramax or Dreamworks can promote pretty much any film it wishes to a nomination (e.g., CHOCOLAT, this year), all kinds of factors have figured in stuffing the winning envelopes. This year I'm going to field three lists for each category: 1)My pick of the Academy Nominees; the actual pick of the Academy Nominees; and 3) my pick, whether or not it was a Nominee. Some of the latter may or may not jibe with the first two. I shall not try to select winning short subjects or documentaries, etc., although these pictures are often the most artful of all the works on display. They are generally done with care and/or passion, with no hope of great financial return. But neither I, most of the public, nor many of the Academy have seen them. (Keep tuned to PBS for a few.) Let's start about as far down the list as I dare go: MAKE-UP: Nominees -- DR 1. SEUSS: THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS. 2. SHADOW OF A VAMPIRE. 3. THE CELL. [In the Academy's view, it must have been a bad year for Make-up, despite the number of films about hairdressers. This category is one of only three that do not have five nominees. The other two, equally strangely, are Sound Editing and Visual Effects. You would think that 90% of current movies are competing in those sadly overburdened categories.] Granting that Make-up contributed to whatever charm Jim Carrey's Christmas GRINCH blockbuster may have had, the Academy and I should concur here that in a thoroughly disreputable picture, William Dafoe's make-up as Count Graf Orlock (Max Schreck) in SHADOW OF A VAMPIRE, wins the prize. We must assume, owing to its absurd conceit, that Schreck, the lead actor of F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU (1922), was indeed a vampire and, as it were, had no private life: A marvelously grotesque performance sabotaged by an equally grotesque film. Only the make-up is memorable. COSTUME DESIGN: Nominees -- 1. 102 DALMATIANS. 2. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 3. DR. SEUSS: THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS. 4. GLADIATOR. 5. QUILLS. In Costume Design, I really do think DR. SEUSS: THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS is the best of the Nominees. The costumes were bright, imaginative and contributed to the fantasy. It is my pick. However, my guess, between two top contenders for Best Picture, is that the Academy will go with GLADIATOR, which had less for women than CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON does, but a great number of striking examples of Roman and other military dress. Now, what film had the best costumes of the year? No question in my mind. It was the little seen ORFEU, a Brazilian movie by Carlos Diegues, which came and went in San Francisco in a week's time. It was an old fashioned Hollywood-type Cinemascope three-strip Technicolor extravaganza, a re-make of BLACK ORPHEUS (Camus, 1959), set during Carnival in Rio. The costumes were blazingly spectacular. ART DIRECTION: Nominees -- 1. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 2. DR. SEUSS: THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS. 3. GLADIATOR. 4. QUILLS. 5. VATEL. The Usual Suspects are joined in this category by VATEL, Roland Joffre's flawed celebration of the birth of French cuisine at Court of Louis XIV in the 17th Century. Despite a huge array of talent, the film had little going for but its Art Direction. Some testimony to the Power of Miramax (which distributed VATEL) that the film got an Academy nomination! While never underestimating Miramax, I am going to pick DR. SEUSS again, but I believe that the Academy will want to reward something French, and QUILLS will be their answer for the Oscar. What film, then, had the Best Art Direction? I think it would be a tie between the aforementioned ORFEU and another strange little film entitled MOLOCH (Alexandr Sokorov). The latter, an intensely focused, almost documentary study of two days in the banal life of Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun at Berchtesgaden, features some of the most impressive presentations of Modern Monolithic Architecture and its trappings I've seen. The film was scarcely released in the United States. FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Nominees -- 1. AMORES PERROS. 2. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 3. DIVIDED WE FALL. 4. EVERYBODY FAMOUS. 5. THE TASTE OF OTHERS. Very few Americans see foreign movies, and not many Academy members. My pick from these Nominees is CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. I think the Academy will see it my way, too. It is the perfect foreign film for American audiences: full of action, fantasy and hyperbolic passion. It is the sort of film that may, in "cross-over," replace the swashbuckler and the old salutes to the British Empire. It is directed by Ang Lee, a Taiwanese, American-trained film maker, who has worked largely in the West (SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, 1995; THE ICE STORM, 1997). The film, which aside from excellent technical touches, is similar to decades of Asian Martial Arts Films, reflects the importance of China in America's future and the growing importance of the Asian audience in this country. We may be witnessing the rise of a new genre: The Eastern. Of course, when a film like THE WIND WILL CARRY US by Abbas Kiarostami, one of the greatest living directors, is ignored -- as are Sokorov's MOLOCH and Aleksi Guerman's KHRUSTALYOV, MASHINU (Khrustaliov, My Car! or just THE CAR!) -- we have fresh evidence what an uncertain process of nomination the Academy uses. Guerman's nightmarish picture about a victim of the "Doctor's Plot" in 1953, while Stalin lay dying, is the best foreign film I've seen this year. Difficult, I agree. I'm not sure I understood every nuance, but I know it was a great film. Again, hardly released. Only by looking into the Chicago Reader, after preparing my list of the Ten Best Films of 2000, did I discover MOLOCH had been shown in Chicago. I saw it at the San Francisco International Film Festival last spring. FILM EDITING: Nominees -- 1. ALMOST FAMOUS. 2. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 3. GLADIATOR. 4. TRAFFIC. 5. WONDER BOYS. Why you ask was Curtis Hanson's disappointing WONDER BOYS re-released closer to the end of the year? Why was it nominated for Film Editing? It is a mystery that I think I've solved. Ordinarily, looking at these five, I would select CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. Ang Lee's return to his roots really shone in this department, and should win, but I think the Academy will pick WONDER BOYS!!! WHY? you ask again. Because Hanson's movie was edited by Dede Allen, legendary editor of THE HUSTLER (1961), BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), LITTLE BIG MAN (1970), SERPICO (1971), DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975), REDS (1981), THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985), THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1991), etc. She is 75 this year, and came out of virtual retirement to edit WONDER BOYS. She has been nominated twice for her editing. She has never won. That WONDER BOYS is a pretty dull movie is beside the point. The matter is one of those Academy imponderables. If I knew them all, I could pick every Oscar winner. What was the best editing this year? Showy though it was, the editing of Aronovsky's REQUIEM FOR A DREAM made that film unforgettable. I don't think any of the above nominated films came anywhere near it. CINEMATOGRAPHY: 1. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 2. GLADIATOR. 3. MALENA. 4. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? 5. THE PATRIOT. While Caleb Deschanel photography was the best thing about THE PATRIOT, and Giusseppi Tornatore (director of 1998's CINEMA PARADISO) saw MALENA'S sad problem was exquisitely defined on film, I believe that the Academy will overlook them, as it will GLADIATOR, and give a nod again to CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, for reasons already applied above. From the list, I would have picked for an Oscar Roger Donaldson's sunny work in O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? But what was really the best photographed film of the year? It is really tough to choose because today many howlingly bad films are beautifully photographed. I can't get the dazzling cinematography of ORFEU out of my mind's eye. That would be my choice. ORIGINAL SONG: Nominees -- 1. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. "Love Before Time" 2. DANCER IN THE DARK. "I've Seen It All" 3. THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROVE. "My Funny Friend and Me" 4. MEET THE PARENTS. "A Fool in Love" 5. WONDER BOYS "Things Have Changed" None of these songs, any more than most recent Oscar-winning tunes, will become standards. In terms of an Art Song, from a film where the songs were organic to the picture, I'll warrant that Bjork's "I've Seen It All" comes closest. That would receive my vote. But while animated films like THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROVE usually have a lock on the category, my guess is that the Golden Tonsil will go to "Things Have Changed" from WONDER BOYS. Frankly, I don't remember the song in the movie. So why choose it? For a reason similar to the one I had in tapping Dede Allen, the film's editor. The composer of "Things Have Changed," forgettable as it may be, is not just an ordinary Hollywood hack, but a cultural icon: Bob Dylan. I shall say no more. I could not find a better song if I controlled the secret song library of Napster. I consider the introduction and promotion of songs in non-musical films one of the great steps backwards for the Hollywood film. ORIGINAL SCORE: Nominees -- 1. CHOCOLAT. 2. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 3. GLADIATOR. 4. MALENA. 5. THE PATRIOT. Musical Scores bring us back to days of long gone Classical Hollywood. None of these scores is at such a level, although John Williams tries in THE PATRIOT (not one of his better efforts), and Hans Zimmer in GLADIATOR, did what he could for that sprawling, computerized production. I believe the Academy will be divided closely over two other choices: The score for CROUCHING DRAGON, HIDDEN TIGER (only because World Class Violist Yo-Yo Ma had a hand in it) and the one for MALENA because hot veteran Ennio Morricone provided it. (Thrice nominated composer of over 50 scores, many of them renowned, Morricone at 73 has never won.) My pick would be Morricone, but I believe the Oscar will go to CROUCHING DRAGON, HIDDEN TIGER. What score should win? Once again Aronofsky's REQUIEM FOR A DREAM possesses a score fashioned by the Kronos Quartet. It is the best musical score for a film this year. Not nominated, of course. BEST ADAPTED SCREEN PLAY: Nominees -- 1. CHOCOLAT. 2. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 3. TRAFFIC. 4. O BROTHER, WHERE OUT THOU? 5. WONDER BOYS. While admiring the research on which TRAFFIC is based, I preferred the free wheeling Coen Brothers' adaptation of Homer's Odyssey in O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? I think the Oscar will go to TRAFFIC in this category because the film is IMPORTANT, even though the work is sterile in its semi-documentary approach, and the best scenes in the film were improvised on location. (Now the original British TV mini-series was something else.) My choice for BEST ADAPTED SCREEN PLAY would go to Dennis Johnson in adapting his own book of interrelated stories, JESUS' SON, for Alison Maclean's movie of the same name. For a straight prose writer to turn his work into a successful movie is an accomplishment. BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Nominees -- 1. ALMOST FAMOUS. 2. BILLY ELIOT. 3. ERIN BROCKOVICH. 4. GLADIATOR. 5. YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. This category is a strong one. I can't decide whether the screen play for ERIN BROCKOVICH or the one for YOU CAN COUNT ON ME is better. I think it should be YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. Cameron Crowe's job of writing and directing, however, I believe will win the Oscar because the film got short shrift in numbers of nominations. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Nominees -- 1. Judi Dench (CHOCOLAT). 2. Marsha Gay Harden (Pollock). 3. Kate Hudson (ALMOST FAMOUS). 4. Frances McDormand (ALMOST FAMOUS). 5. Julie Walters (BILLY ELIOT). As usual, the BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS slate offers some standouts. I believe no actress on the list is more deserving than Frances McDormand, and regardless of the presence of rising star Kate Hudson in the same category, from the same movie, I see McDormand at the lectern on Sunday, March 25th. She gave the film what Kate Hudson, charming as she was, could not -- some rooting in a middle class that was never the same after the 1970's BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Nominee -- 1. Jeff Bridges (THE CONTENDER). 2. Willem DaFoe (SHADOW OF A VAMPIRE). 3. Benicio Del Toro (TRAFFIC). 4. Albert Finney (ERIN BROCKOVICH) 5. Joaquin Phoenix (GLADIATOR) What an interesting category in 2000! The Academy did well. Jeff Bridges should win on the basis of his having turned in so many fine performances over the years (three nominations, no wins), but the political and personal bad taste left by the wrangle by several of the creative team over who sabotaged THE CONTENDER may nix it. DaFoe awed many as Max Schreck, the original Dracula, but I judge it was the Make-up rather than the performance in an ill-conceived SHADOW OF A VAMPIRE which impressed. Everyone talks about Del Toro as a star of the future. May be so. I see him more of a character actor unless he can establish himself as a kind of Latin Humphrey Bogart. Albert Finney gave ERIN BROCKOVICH the sense of solid reality it needed. He and Julia Roberts made a splendid team. And Joaquin Phoenix showed his peers he can act in an under written part in GLADIATOR. And so, who should win? Albert Finney. Who will win? Probably Benicio Del Toro. BEST ACTRESS: Nominees -- 1. Joan Allen (THE CONTENDER). 2. Juliette Binoche (CHOCOLAT). 3. Ellen Burstyn (REQUIEM FOR A NUN). 4. Laura Linney (YOU CAN COUNT ON ME). 5. Julia Roberts (ERIN BROCKOVICH). Joan Allen is crippled in THE CONTENDER by the same troubles that dog Jeff Bridges. Juliette Binoche proves pleasant in the negligible but Miramax backed CHOCOLAT. That leaves three impressive performances in excellent movies. Laura Linney is popular, beautiful, thoroughly professional. She was fine in the strong family drama, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, but her time may not be quite yet. I go with the smart money. Saucy, gorgeous Julia Roberts was ERIN BROCKOVICH in several senses. Like most critics and audiences, I loved her in the film. She will receive the Academy Award. Who should receive the Oscar? If she were beautiful, in a film that sentimentalized its subject a tad like ERIN BROCKOVICH, Ellen Burstyn would win hands down. As it is, her performance in the harshly bleak REQUIEM FOR A NUN is the best of a distinguished career. She should get the Oscar for her work in this truly great movie. BEST ACTOR: Nominees -- 1. Javier Bardem (BEFORE NIGHT FALLS). 2. Russell Crowe (GLADIATOR). 3. Tom Hanks (Castaway). 4. Ed Harris (POLLOCK). 5. Geoffrey Rush (QUILLS). Only in this category do I sense a real upset taking place. Tom Hanks has already been a winner, as has Geoffrey Rush. Neither performance of these two occurs in a Best Picture nomination. Many critics say that Russell Crowe will win for his starmaker, GLADIATOR. But he is an Australian, in a movie that in retrospect was not very good, and his romantic involvement with Meg Ryan may hurt him. Javier Bardem is an unknown, and the Director of BEFORE NIGHT FALLS has bad mouthed everyone else in sight. Rather foolish. I have come to the conclusion that Ed Harris, a well regarded, workmanlike actor, will win the Oscar for his striking portrayal of famous Modern Artist Jackson Pollock. Harris also directed POLLOCK and, for over a decade, put his own money into the project. The Academy likes this kind of devotion. I pick Harris. I think the Academy will pick Harris. I believe they should pick . . . Harris. BEST PICTURE: Nominees -- 1. CHOCOLAT. 2. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 3. ERIN BROCKOVICH. 4. GLADIATOR. 5. TRAFFIC. From the list above, I would choose ERIN BROCKOVICH as the BEST PICTURE. It was a highly entertaining, important movie, which followed rather closely a true story. I believe, nevertheless, that the Academy will narrowly pick TRAFFIC, a movie, as I have already indicated, that Hollywood sees as important. TRAFFIC sends a subliminal message that, if enforcement and treatment cannot by improved, perhaps the United States should legalize drugs, a view shared by a significant number of Academy Members in Hollywood. But after the clowns have departed, and the lights put out in the hall, the BEST PICTURE made in America in 2000 will be seen to be REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, a picture which suggests that the above sentiment would not solve America's almost pervasive need, in its many varieties, for addiction. Twenty years from now, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM will still be discussed when those selected by the Academy, with the possible exception of ERIN BROCKOVICH, are forgotten. As I've said, I've come to the conclusion that REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is a great American film. Not nominated. BEST DIRECTOR: Nominees -- 1. Stephen Daltry (Billy Elliot). 2. Ang Lee (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON). 3. Steven Sodebergh (ERIN BROCKOVICH). 4. Ridley Scott (GLADIATOR). 5. Steven Sodebergh (TRAFFIC). Steven Sodebergh already has gone into the record book as only the second director to be nominated twice in the same year. [Michael Curtiz was the first in 1938 for FOUR DAUGHTERS and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. He had to wait until CASABLANCA four years to be awarded an Oscar.] It is unlikely that Soderbergh can win, even though I believe his TRAFFIC will receive the BEST PICTURE Award. Under other circumstances, he would be expected to walk away with the Award. That leaves a strong conflict between Ridley Scott and Ang Lee, which I believe Scott will have resolved in his favor. Who should be honored as BEST DIRECTOR? The same artist who directed my personal BEST PICTURE selection: Darren Aronofsky of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. That combination will not be featured on Sunday, March 25, 2001, nor in the headlines Monday morning. That prediction is one of which I'm absolutely sure. But I can also promise you that on Sunday evening, should you tune in your TV to the Oscars Show, you will see honored one of the truly great film artists of the 20th Century and clips from some of the most beautiful and excellent motion pictures ever made. No, I'm not referring to any of the people or films nominated and discussed above. Jack Cardiff, cinematographer of THE FOUR FEATHERS (1939), STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (1946), BLACK NARCISSUS (1946), THE RED SHOES (1948), PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1951), THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951), WAR AND PEACE (1956), THE VIKINGS (1958), THE DOGS OF WAR (1981), GHOST STORY (1981), SCANDALOUS (1984) and CAT'S EYE (1985) -- to name a few of my personal favorites -- will receive an award for Lifetime Achievement Sunday Evening. At the age of 87, he is still working. Now that's a career worthy of an Oscar.  |
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