Paul's Place > Talkin' 'bout da Movies > Paul's Oscar Pix > 2001

Now that all is said and done, click here to read my Oscar Wrap-up

"Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you should sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

—HAL 9000, 2001: A Space Odyssey

Damn right I'm upset! This has been the worst year for movies that I can remember. All through the fall I hadn't yet seen a single film that was as good as the many great movies of 1999. It's not that the movies were bad, though I wish they had been, because bad movies are fun to rant about. (Though let's not forget John Travolta's priceless little gift to the world, Battlefield Earth.) They were just incredibly, amazingly mediocre.

There was even a time when I thought I'd grown tired of movies themselves; the lackluster quality of the year's offerings had rendered me profoundly apathetic, and I just couldn't see myself getting stuck in traffic, finding parking, etc., all for the privilege of spending eight bucks to kiss two hours of my life goodbye. Lately I've been watching a lot of old movies on AMC, which has rekindled my interest in the art form. Plus there are some good movies coming out soon, at least until the writers' and actors' strikes shut down production.

This year's pix are going to be short; be glad I found anything to say about these turkeys at all.

The producers of the Oscar telecast are trying to make the show slightly less endless this year by limiting acceptance speeches to 45 minutes. Yeah, I'm sure that'll be real successful. I'm guessing the show won't run a hair under 4 hours this year and viewers will still have to listen to the winner of the Documentary Short Subject Oscar prattle on about how he hopes the award will help open peoples' eyes to the plight of disappearing uncle-nephew bonding rituals in the former regions of French Indochina.

This year the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award is going to producer/schlockmeister Dino De Laurentiis ("Nobody cry when Jaws die! When my Kong die, everyone cry!" —John Belushi as De Laurentiis, 1976). Hard to know what to make of that.

Anyway. For those of you who are new to this cavalcade of error or need a refresher, every year I make predictions in all eight "major" categories plus one bonus category, which this year is Best Cinematography (or "Achievement in Cinematography," as the category is formally known). I thought about making the bonus category Best Documentary Feature this year because one of the nominees is about the Holocaust and is therefore a shoo-in to win. You'll recall that since 1996 fully 3 of the 5 Best Documentary Feature winners have been about the Holocaust, and last year's winner was about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, which I suppose on some level is thematically similar to the Holocaust, so I feel I'd be on safe ground with that pick. But I decided not to go with the Documentary category this year, partially because I said my peace on that subject in 1998 and have nothing to add to it. I'm not going with Best Song either, even though Björk got a nomination in place of the one she should have gotten in the Best Actress category; all that means is that instead of losing to Julia Roberts, she'll lose to the latest overproduced product from the Disney schmaltz factory. I also decided not to go with Best Foreign Language Film, despite the fact that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the only nominee anyone in the Academy has seen and will therefore win by default. I considered all of these categories, but finally settled on Achievement in Cinematography, because I haven't done it before and because it will allow me to pretend I know something about cinematography.

Last year, you'll recall, I had my Top Ten list and seven Honorable Mentions, which made seventeen films whose praises I deemed worthy of singing to the masses (and out of which exactly one was nominated for Best Picture, but that's a rant for another time). This year I had trouble scraping together ten films for the list. Thus was the state of the film industry in the year 2000. It probably also has something to do with the fact that several times during the year I would go without seeing movies for weeks at a time due to my general malaise and apathy regarding the crap in theaters, so I didn't see as many movies this year as in previous years. Whatever the reasons, this is one pretty thin list. Starting off with number one:

Dancer in the Dark—Lars Von Trier's controversial, heartbreaking musical was the best picture I saw last year.

Some of you might recall me mouthing off from time to time about how I hate musicals, and while that's usually true, Dancer in the Dark might more properly be considered a kind of anti-musical for the way it turns the saccharine, artificial Andrew Lloyd Webber-Gilbert and Sullivan genre on its head. Von Trier's Dogma 95-influenced film is shot on digital video, which I normally abhor but which works nicely with the film's intentionally amateurish style: during the courtroom scene, for example, when one of the characters makes a mildly surprising declaration and the camera whips around to focus on the subject of the statement, the camera takes several seconds to come into focus, as if the camera operator had not been expecting this development.

Of course, no review of Dancer in the Dark can be complete without mentioning the breathtaking lead debut of Icelandic singer Björk as Selma, the tragic hero of the film. Björk's unusual vocal stylings and wide-set eyes have always given her a somewhat alien quality, which Von Trier puts to good use: here, she plays a Czechoslovakian immigrant with an accent that is not in the least bit Eastern European (absurdist touches like this, along with the regal Catherine Deneuve as a blue-collar Northwestern factory worker, highlight and therefore neutralize the inherent artificiality of the musical genre), and reports of her erratic behavior on the set due to her apparent reported inability to separate herself from the part she was playing only serve to bolster her image as a messianic figure within the film, a kind of Kaspar Hauser for the 21st century who can bring salvation to the world by virtue of not being of the world, if only mankind were not too stupid and vulgar to listen.

Or not. I dunno. Draw your own conclusions.

The rest, in no particular order:

O Brother, Where Art Thou?—The Coen Brothers' demented retelling of The Odyssey set in rural Depression-era Mississippi ranks with their best efforts. The Minnesota-born Coens are never happier than when they're poking gentle fun at yokels, and there are yokels galore to be had in this film, from George Clooney's erudite, pomade-obsessed prison escapee to the gubernatorial candidate who travels the state with a dwarf, representing the Little Man. I'm in the minority in that I've always enjoyed the Coens' comedies (Raising Arizona, et al.) more than their heavier pictures like Fargo, though those are fine too, and though I'm loath to claim that a funnier movie has been made than Raising Arizona, O Brother comes mighty close.

You Can Count On Me—Everyone I know who's seen it has loved Kenneth Lonergan's deeply affecting drama about two grown siblings, orphaned as children, who have come to depend on each other despite hardly being able to stand one another from time to time.

Cast Away—Robert Zemeckis' latest film is slyly subversive by virtue of being not at all what the average moviegoer might expect. Originally set to be titled Castaway, the space in the middle tells the whole story: it's not about a person, but about a state of being. Everyone's getting tired of Tom Hanks by now, but he deserves a lot of praise for this role.

Best in Show—Christopher Guest's lunatic mockumentary about a dog show brings together some of the finest comic actors working today and gives them a forum to pull out all the stops. Best in Show is still playing at the Broadway Market in Seattle almost six months after it opened, which is astonishing—although I'm sure that's why it's not scheduled to come out on DVD until May. Stupid audiences! Stop seeing this movie!

State and Main—I wasn't really a David Mamet fan until I caught Glengarry Glen Ross on Bravo, which blew me away even though about a fourth of the soundtrack was censored. State and Main is a sweetly subversive comedy about the effects the shooting of a big-budget movie on a small New England town. It's Philip Seymour Hoffman's first romantic lead, and how can you not love that? Even Rebecca Pidgeon wasn't particularly annoying.

High Fidelity—"A chick film for guys," is how several wags have described High Fidelity, which strikes me as being as apt a comparison as any. I wasn't on a date when I saw this sweet, funny little movie, though now I wish I had been. Kudos to the filmmakers for casting Jack Black as high-energy music nerd Barry, and for introducing the world to Iben Hjejle, who is a young Danish actress and not a relative of the gazelle native to the African savannah.

Traffic—Really three or four movies in one, Traffic is a complex, nuanced picture that manages to be morally ambiguous and deliver a strong message at the same time. Director Stephen Soderbergh keeps the pace up and draws great performances from all his actors (when was the last time anyone had anything nice to say about Catherine Zeta-Jones?). This is the movie that got people talking seriously about the cost-benefit ratio of the War on (certain) Drugs, a discussion that's desperately needed to take place for years. Which by itself doesn't necessarily make for a good movie; when judging the value of a film I try to focus exclusively on what's on screen and not on stories about how the movie was made, the views of the filmmakers, and other extraneous information. But the reason the message was so effective here is that the film earns the emotions it wrests from the viewer, with a full cast of well-developed, multidimensional characters placed in realistic situations.

Traffic is based on the 1989 British television miniseries Traffik, which I have not seen. Some people swear it was much better than the movie. These are usually the kind of people who swear that everything Britain does is better than everything America does. I find that these people usually shut up when you bring up Benny Hill.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon—The highest-grossing foreign language film in American history, which is as uncomplimentary about the tastes of the nation's moviegoers as it is complimentary about the movie. Director Ang Lee, whose last movie was about young Confederate-sympathizing irregulars on the Missouri-Kansas border during the Civil War, seems determined to make every movie as different from the one before it as possible (his next one's supposed to be about the Incredible Hulk—no joke). This one's a sprawling epic adventure set in China, filmed to look like the most beautiful country in the world, and featuring a stolen sword, long-standing vendettas, and a bunch of people doing impossible things.

Kung Fu. Sword Fu. Anti-gravity Fu. Ramen noodle Fu. Subtitle Fu. No breasts. Several dead bodies. Four stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

One is tempted to draw a comparison to Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai: the samurai movie was an overworked, pedestrian genre in Japan, analogous to the American western movie, until Kurosawa came along and made it art. It would be presumptuous to suggest that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is on a par with The Seven Samurai, but it's fair to say that Ang Lee has done for the martial arts film what Kurosawa did for the samurai picture.

Thirteen Days—Who knew Thirteen Days wouldn't garner a single Oscar nomination? I blame Kevin Costner. I feel strongly that Kevin Costner should be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the movies, except that which can be plausibly blamed on Kurt Russell. Where was I? Thirteen Days, right. The film tells the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Postman plays Kennedy advisor Kenny O'Donnell, and wisely tends to stay in the background, except for all those times when he's the only one in the Office who's not a Kennedy. You'd keep getting these scenes of tense conferences between John, Bobby, and some guy who happens to be played by Kevin Costner. Egomania? I dunno. You tell me. But I'm guessing those scenes would have been very different if Kenny O'Donnell had been played by Judge Reinhold.

I confess I had forgotten, or maybe I never knew, how the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved (I figured that the Russkies had backed down, because we're still here, but the details eluded me), so Thirteen Days had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. It's always great when a movie about a known historical event can do that. Nice work by Bruce Greenwood as the President and Steven Culp as Robert Kennedy. The Canadian Greenwood continues the tradition established by Anthony Hopkins in Nixon of foreigners playing the President of the United States. At least Martin Sheen is American.

DVD KORNER: So far I don't own any 2000 movies on DVD, though I expect to at least buy O Brother, Where Art Thou? Dancer in the Dark, and Best in Show when they come out. (Someone please explain studio DVD release strategies to me. Will they give us Citizen Kane on DVD? No. Will they give us The Godfather on DVD? No. Will they give us Star Wars on DVD? No. Will they give us Cop and a Half? Oh yes, oh yes indeed. Cop and a Half they'll let us have.)

On to the nominees...

Nominees:
Chocolat
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Erin Brockovich
Gladiator
Traffic

Who Should Win: Traffic

A fairly standard collection of nominees this year, neither better nor worse than the average. The nominees, as always, in decreasing order of irrationality:

Chocolat—Perfectly pleasant and utterly unremarkable, Chocolat is perhaps the apotheosis of the Disney-era Miramax film: a gentle romantic comedy set in an outrageously picturesque European village where all the streets are cobbled and all the buildings have walls made of discolored stucco. Being a Miramax film, of course, the studio is lobbying hard for it, which is the only reason it's here.

The astute will remember that I selected Miramax films as my personal picks for this award in 1999 and 2000, over the general opprobrium of feelm creeteeks and other feelm snobs of my acquaintance, which some might feel reduces my credibility in this matter. In my defense I point out that the two films that were actually my favorites those years were made by hipster filmmakers Todd Solondz and Alexander Payne and were not nominated for Best Picture. Still, culture fascism notwithstanding, I believed and still believe that of the pictures presented, the Miramax offerings were simply better than the others. That is not the case this year.

Erin Brockovich—Let's put it out in the open: this is the same movie as A Civil Action, and Ghosts of Mississippi, and The Insider. I'm really at a loss to understand why this unexceptional based-on-a-true-story legal thriller has garnered so much praise.

Gladiator — Better than its detractors say but not as good as its 12 (!) nominations would indicate, Gladiator is an above-average entry in the long-dormant sword-and-sandal genre that has seen some of the best pictures ever made (Spartacus, Ben-Hur) and some of the worst sub-Hercules dross of all time. Dreamy, impressionistic, moody, at times sickeningly violent, Gladiator doesn't quite succeed in its mission of creating a new kind of epic for the millennium, but it's a worthy entry and deserves a place in the middle of the pack of nominees.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — One of only two genuinely extraordinary movies to be nominated for Best Picture. I'm glad to see it here, and it has a fairly decent chance to win. It wasn't easy for me to choose a favorite this year, but at the end of the day I'm forced to give the edge to...

Traffic — I admired the sophisticated balance of storylines, the complex, multilayered characters, and the overall depth of the story. Traffic is my Who Should Win pick this year.

I measure the greatness of a movie in part by how much it continues to affect me after it has ended. Some of the best movies preoccupy my thoughts for weeks. (Some of the worst movies preoccupy my thoughts for weeks too, but that's because I can't stop thinking about how much I dislike them.) I stopped thinking about Chocolat the moment I walked out of the theater. Traffic's message—that the War on Drugs does far more harm than good to drug users and to the United States—is one that I've long agreed with, so it didn't change my thinking on the matter. But it takes more than a message to keep my mind on a movie, and Traffic's adept approach to its subject matter transformed it from a polemic into something much greater. And if the film causes people to rethink America's attitude towards the drug war, so be it. I'm all for anything that makes people agree with me.

Who Will Win: Erin Brockovich

Steven Soderbergh directed two movies in 2000. One, Traffic, was a complex, multilayered examination of the drug trafficking problem in the United States and Mexico that presented no easy answers or solutions and starred Benicio Del Toro. The other, Erin Brockovich, was a well-made but extremely ordinary based-on-a-true-story legal thriller with a pat resolution that starred Julia Roberts. Guess which one is gonna win this category?

The popular consensus, I think, is that Gladiator is supposed to win this year, but I'm going to swim against the tide just a little bit and predict that the Academy is going to eschew what amounts to a well-made sword-and-sandal flick in favor of one that's media friendly, pushes all the right social and political buttons, and doesn't have all that blood and stuff that makes Joe Leiberman so mad. I could be embarrassed come Oscar night, but I have to go with my gut here.

Missing: Dancer in the Dark

I suppose I could list all eight of the movies that were on my Top Ten list but didn't get nominated, but I think I'll focus on Dancer in the Dark (am I the only one who can't help thinking of Bruce Springsteen every time, and I mean every time, I hear that title?). It won the Palm d'Or at Cannes, very controversially. Viewers habitually walked out of the theaters when it was screened, and audience members audibly booed when it was announced as Palm d'Or winner. It seems there's no middle ground with this movie: you either love it, or you hate it. I'm sure Dancer in the Dark received many votes from Academy members during the nomination period, but those votes were probably matched by an equal number of voters who were determined that it receive no nominations whatsoever. I think that's a shame.

Nominees:
Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls
Russell Crowe, Gladiator
Tom Hanks, Cast Away
Ed Harris, Pollock
Geoffrey Rush, Quills

Who Should Win: Ed Harris, Pollock

I remember about 12 or 13 years ago I went to the Seattle Art Museum with a college class for an exhibition of abstract expressionist paintings. Among the paintings on display were a few by Jackson Pollock, which blew me away. When you get a chance to see Pollock's "drip" paintings up close, you realize how much creative insight and just plain work went into the creation of what might at first seem to be a chaotic mess. It's definitely not something you or I could do. Arguably it's something only Jackson Pollock, with his tragic combination of artistic talent and personal demons, could do.

In his most personal role yet, the always-amazing Ed Harris brings Jackson Pollock to life as a multidimensional genius ultimately undone by the defects of his character. Some of the strongest images of the movie are of Harris standing over a painting in his studio, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, meticulously layering liquid paint onto the canvas. The viewer really believes that Harris is Pollock, that he's really creating a masterpiece as we watch, that a thousand things are going through his mind as he shapes and channels them into pure expression. Harris also manages to portray Pollock's slide into alcoholism and undiagnosed manic-depression without chewing the scenery, something many actors can only dream of doing.

Who Will Win: Russell Crowe, Gladiator

I'm thinking the Academy might be just a tad sorry they didn't, or couldn't, give Russell Crowe the Best Actor award he was nominated for last year, and might be tempted to make it up to him this year. Certainly his buff, inscrutable gladiator is a very different character than The Insider's lumpy, graying tobacco executive, and that's the kind of range that distinguishes a popular, respected actor from just another flavor-of-the-month. And I'm thinking they might finally be getting sick of Tom Hanks, like the rest of us, despite his fine work in Cast Away. He's also managed to maintain a high profile by being romantically linked to a number of A-list actresses, including at least one whom we could have sworn didn't go for that sort of thing. All of which might just add up to a little bald guy for Russell on March 26th. Maybe they'll even get him to crack a smile this year.

Missing: George Clooney, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I actually didn't think there were a lot of remarkable performances from lead actors this year, so I decided to plug in George Clooney because I think his fame often threatens to overshadow the fact that he's been terrific in diverse movies like O Brother, The Perfect Storm, and Three Kings. And he was pretty good in ER, though he'd have been better if he ever could have been persuaded to look straight ahead once in a while, instead of at his shoes. What's that all about, George? Did they teach you that in drama class?

Nominees:
Joan Allen, The Contender
Juliette Binoche, Chocolat
Ellen Burstyn, Requiem for a Dream
Laura Linney, You Can Count on Me
Julia Roberts' Breasts, Erin Brockovich

Who Should Win: Laura Linney, You Can Count On Me

The familiar cliché holds that it's an honor just to be nominated, and that's the honor with which Laura Linney will have to be satisfied this year. She is a fine, highly underrated actress who's paid her dues (don't think even for a second that we've forgotten that was you in Congo, Laura) and made some small name for herself in the kind of roles Helen Hunt turns down. Now, finally, she's been given a chance to shine in this unjustly-ignored filial relationship movie, and shine she has. Of all the choices I'm making this year, this is the one I'm most sure of.

Joan Allen poses an interesting problem. Certainly, she is a fine actress, and an inspiration not only to women but to all of us. And her role as Senator Lane Hanson, a nominee for Vice President who comes under ferocious attack from Gary Oldman's scumbag Republican senator during her confirmation process, was a joy to behold. But—and I hate to be the one to bring this up—hasn't the whole Joan-Allen-as-strong-intelligent-woman-who-takes-loads-of-undeserved-abuse-but-ultimately-prevails-through-the-strength-of-her-character thing been, um, done? Like, lots of times? Again, I thought she was great, but she essentially played the same character she played in Pleasantville, and The Ice Storm before that, and The Crucible before that, and Nixon before that. I hate to see her get pigeonholed, but at this point she's got enough clout to break out of it if she wants to, to be honest.

Who Will Win: Julia Roberts' Breasts, Erin Brockovich

Linney and Allen have both collected a lot of good buzz for their performances last year, but they are just actresses, whereas Julia Roberts' breasts are, well, breasts. It's hard to beat that, especially with an Academy filled with the kind of degenerate preeverts who voted for American Beauty last year. Of all the predictions I'm making this year, this is the one I'm most sure of.

Missing: Björk, Dancer in the Dark; Emily Watson, Trixie

I was expecting to hear at least some Oscar buzz for Emily Watson this year, but there was none. Maybe that's because the movie was, um, bad. It's hard to believe Emily Watson made her mark in heavy dramatic movies like Breaking the Waves; her performance as Trixie Zurbo, a slightly addled novice private detective who never met a cliché she couldn't mangle ("I've got an ace up my hole," "You're out of your rocker") in Alan Rudolph's interesting failure is enough to convince anyone she's a natural born comic actress. I hope we haven't seen the last of her comedic gifts.

Nominees:
Jeff Bridges, The Contender
Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire
Benicio Del Toro, Traffic
Albert Finney, Erin Brockovich
Joaquin Phoenix, Gladiator

Who Should Win: Benicio Del Toro, Traffic

This isn't a hard decision to make. Del Toro's conscientious Mexican police officer who learns the hard way that sometimes there's no way to do the right thing is perhaps the best thing about Traffic. I suppose Michael Douglas is properly considered the movie's lead actor, but Del Toro provides its heart.

Who Will Win: Albert Finney, Erin Brockovich

I wavered here. My first prediction was Joaquin Phoenix, whom I think the Academy wants to like and who turned in a very good performance in Gladiator. Now, however, I'm starting to agree with those who think Albert Finney is going to get a Lifetime Achievement Oscar this year; he's been nominated four times before going back to 1964 and has never won, and now at last he's been nominated for a crowd-pleaser and box office success (who even remembers The Dresser and Under the Volcano anymore?). It looks like Al's year.

If he does win and Laura Linney pulls off an upset in Best Actress, it'll be Linney and Finney.

Missing: Fred Willard, Best in Show; John Turturro, O Brother, Where Art Thou?; Bruce Greenwood, Thirteen Days; Philip Seymour Hoffman, Almost Famous, Wilson the Volleyball, Cast Away

Veteran comic actor Fred Willard stood out from Best in Show's outstanding cast as moronic dog show broadcaster Buck Laughlin. Anyone who's seen the Westminster Kennel Club broadcast on the USA Network will instantly recognize Willard's takeoff on Joe Garagiola, who provides the play-by-play for the dog show every year despite knowing absolutely nothing about dogs and evincing no desire to learn anything about dogs. Even people who've never seen the Westminster broadcast were lured to see the movie by Willard's appearances in the trailer ("Ah, the miniature schnauzer. You'd think they'd want to breed 'em bigger, wouldn't you?").

As for Cast Away's Wilson, what can I say? He's better than a lot of actors working today, he works for scale, and I have it on good authority that he'll be available during the actors' strike. Here's hoping we'll see a lot more of this promising newcomer. 

Nominees:
Judi Dench, Chocolat
Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock
Kate Hudson, Almost Famous
Frances McDormand, Almost Famous
Julie Walters, Billy Elliot

Who Should Win: Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock

Jeez, I dunno. I'll go with Marcia Gay Harden, I guess. She was pretty good. I rarely have strong convictions in this category.

Who Will Win: Kate Hudson, Almost Famous

This is a hard one, made harder by the fact that all the nominated performances come from movies I avoided seeing when they first came out due to excessive apathy (except for Pollock, which hadn't come out in Seattle yet). Since then I've seen everything but Billy Elliot, which I might rent when it comes out on DVD, or maybe not. Normally I'd pick Judi Dench or perhaps Julie Walters to win, citing the Limey Rule ("When all else fails, go with the limey"), but this year the Limey Rule is superceded by the more powerful Ho Rule ("Everybody loves a ho!"). In Almost Famous Kate Hudson plays a ho with—you'll never ever guess!!—a heart of gold, and she's received a lot of positive buzz for her performance, which in truth was pretty good. Plus her mother is Goldie Hawn, which can't hurt.

Missing: Zhang Zi-yi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I'm genuinely surprised that young Zhang Zi-yi, cinema's new Mistress of Whoopass, was not nominated here. But then maybe it's not so surprising; as far as I can remember, the last Asian nominated for an Oscar was Dr. Haing S. Ngor. Maybe if Zhang had played a ho she'd have had a better chance.

Nominees:
Stephen Soderbergh, Traffic
Stephen Soderbergh, Erin Brockovich
Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ridley Scott, Gladiator
Stephen Daldry, Billy Elliot

Who Should Win: Stephen Soderbergh, Traffic

I have spent so much time singing Ang Lee's praises for the past several years that it genuinely pains me that in the one year he's nominated for Best Director, I cannot in good conscience make him my personal pick for the award. But I have to be completely honest with myself and admit that I thought Stephen Soderbergh's directorial work on Traffic edged Lee by the smallest of noses. Both movies were extensive in scope and both directors did tremendous work in not letting the subject matter overwhelm them, and in truth I'd love to see either man take home the prize.

Who Will Win: Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ang Lee could film his grocery list and I'd pay $8.50 to see it on opening weekend, so I'm very pleased that he seems to be the frontrunner for this award. This is due in part to the possibility that Soderbergh fans will split their votes between Traffic and Erin Brockovich. This in turn has alarmed some of Soderbergh's supporters to the extent that they've taken out an ad in the trades urging Academy members who want Soderbergh to win to throw their support behind his work on Traffic, reasoning that only an organized campaign directing voters towards one movie specifically will allow Soderbergh to amass enough votes to come out on top. Will it work? It didn't work for Al Gore (and thank you very much for that, Naderoids; I hope you're happy with what you've done), and I don't think it will work here either.

Missing: Lars Von Trier, Dancer in the Dark; Robert Zemeckis, Cast Away

Sometimes directors are as impressive for what doesn't happen in their movies as for what does. In Cast Away, Robert Zemeckis kept Tom Hanks on screen alone, surrounded by desolation, with nobody to talk to but a volleyball, without losing the viewer's interest. Consider, for example, the scene where Zemeckis exhaustively documents Hanks' torturous attempts to build a fire. The scene goes on for at least ten minutes; it was a gutsy move, and one that paid off.

Nominees:
Kenneth Lonergan, You Can Count On Me
Cameron Crowe, Almost Famous
Susannah Grant, Erin Brockovich
Lee Hall, Billy Elliot
David H. Franzoni and John Logan and William Nicholson, Gladiator

Who Should Win: Kenneth Lonergan, You Can Count On Me

I like the screenplay categories because every year, no matter how detestable the nominees for Best Picture are, one or two films get nominated for Best Writing that really, actually deserve it. This year is certainly no exception, with Kenneth Lonergan's very personal film rising out of the surrounding dross to present itself like a shining beacon of quality in a mediocre year.

Who Will Win: Susannah Grant, Erin Brockovich

The corollary to the preceding rule, of course, is that the fine films nominated in the screenwriting categories routinely go on to lose on Oscar night because they didn't get Best Picture nominations and movies that don't get Best Picture nominations almost never win for their screenplays.

Missing: Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, Best in Show; David Mamet, State and Main

David Mamet is moving away from the dense, staccato, profane dialogue he used to use, which I think is a positive development in that some of his earlier work gives the impression that he was more interested in showing off his style than in delivering a good story. In 20 years of writing for the screen and being one of America's foremost dramatists he's only been nominated for an Oscar twice and has never won, which means that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon each have one more screenwriting Oscar than he does. Not that Good Will Hunting didn't have a good script. I'm just sayin', is all.

Nominees:
Robert Nelson Jacobs, Chocolat
Wang Hui-ling, James Schamus, and Kuo Jung Tsai, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ethan Coen, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Stephen Gaghan, Traffic
Steven Kloves, Wonder Boys

Who Should Win: Ethan Coen, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I love the fact that this movie is up for Adapted Screenplay, despite having more in common with Homer Simpson than with Homer's The Odyssey. But, y'know, whatever works. Here again we see a generally higher level of quality than in the Best Picture category. Maybe I should stop doing this Oscar stuff and start doing Writers' Guild Awards Pix.

Who Will Win: Stephen Gaghan, Traffic

This should be a pretty easy win for Gaghan, whose odyssey from strung-out junky to award-winning screenwriter writing about strung-out junkies makes for a very media- and Hollywood-friendly story. He won the adapted screenplay award from BAFTA and from the Writer's Guild, so I doubt he has much competition here. The only other likely contender seems to be Crouching Tiger, which is much more a "directed" film than a "written" one.

Missing: D. V. DeVincentis, High Fidelity

DeVincentis, who previously gave us the screenplay for Grosse Pointe Blank, is making a name for himself as a writer of smart, hip comedies, and I hope we'll be seeing his name show up here sooner or later.

Nominees:
Peter Pau, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
John Mathieson, Gladiator
Lajos Koltai, Malèna
Roger Deakins, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Caleb Deschanel, The Patriot

Who Should Win: Peter Pau, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Cinematography, as the vacuous, overpaid presenter will tell the audience on Oscar night, is the art of creating the look and feel of a motion picture through such techniques as lighting, the angle and motion of the camera, and the choice of lenses, filters, and film stocks to use. The best cinematographers are rightly considered co-authors of their films with the directors. Gregg Toland, considered the Mickey Mantle of cinematography, is famous for the innovative techniques he developed for Citizen Kane, such as his use of shadows, deep focus, and unusual camera angles. Many of his techniques are so common in movies today that it's hard to imagine they had to be "invented"—but they did.

All of which I tell you in order to make it seem as though I've given some real thought to this, when in fact it has more to do with me just picking the movie I thought was purtiest. Seriously, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a visual feast, and a lot of the credit has to go to the cinematographer; this is evident even to an amateur. Crouching Tiger's China is a lush playground for the senses, from the forests to the desert to the temples, and Pau's photography brings out that sensuality without seeming gimmicky.

Who Will Win: Peter Pau, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Missing: "Peter Andrews" (Stephen Soderbergh), Traffic

I'm surprised Traffic's innovative cinematography wasn't nominated, with its liberal use of different film stocks and color filters (yellow for the gritty heat of Mexico, a desiccated blue for Cincinnati). Perhaps the voting cinematographers thought it was too gimmicky.

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That's all I got for ya. Tragically, I will probably not be able to watch the awards telecast live this year, because I'll be traveling in Europe at the time. I'll post my wrap-up after I get back, probably in the first week of April. Peace out.

—Paul
March 10, 2001

"When I was little I could name every kind of nut there was. Peanut, walnut, hazelnut, cashew nut, macadamia nut—that's the one that would just push my momma over the edge, macadamia nut. 'Harlan, stop naming nuts!' she would say. I think it had somethin' to do with the fact I was from Pine Nut. That must've put the idea in my head."

—Harlan Pepper (Christopher Guest), Best in Show