2002
Talkin' 'Bout da Movies
Click here to read my original Oscar Pix!
Another year, another Oscars broadcast. Whoopi Goldberg usually comes in for a lot of criticism when she hosts, and rightly so, but she’s honestly doing the best she can with Bruce Vilanch’s hackwork. I did like the “Smith family” crack (Will and Maggie—har!), though.
Donald Sutherland and Glenn Close look like they’re manning the Oscar concession stand. Didn’t these two used to be actual actors?
How cool was that Errol Morris mini-documentary? How many interviewees were you able to identify? What do you suppose are the chances that Errol Morris will ever be this close to an Oscar statue again?
Now, see, I never, ever give a crap who wears what to the Oscars, and even I feel sorry for Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s wearing what appears to be some kind of sheer body stocking, which is exciting at first because you think you’re seeing right through it, but then they go to a close-up and her nipples are nowhere to be found. How can this be? We know she has them, because they were on screen so much in Shakespeare in Love that they very nearly had to apply for their own SAG card. Her body-stocking-dress-leotard-whatever also looked about two sizes too small, which was probably just some kind of horrifying optical illusion, and made her breasts appear far saggier than any skinny 29-year-old woman’s ought to. Up top, she appears not to have sandblasted away all of the eyeliner she wore in The Royal Tenenbaums. It looked cute on Gwyneth-as-Margot Tenenbaum, but on Gwyneth-as-Gwyneth it looks, well... what’s the exact opposite of cute? I genuinely like Gwyneth Paltrow, who I think is a fine actress and a beautiful woman, but honey, I’m turning into Mr. Blackwell over here, and it’s on the basis of that dress alone.
“Thank you very much. That makes up for the strip search.” Woody Allen rocks.
Anyway, let’s see how well I did.
Nominees:
A
Beautiful Mind
Gosford
Park
In the
Bedroom
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Moulin
Rouge!
Who Should Win: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the
Ring
Who Will Win: A Beautiful Mind
Who DID Win: A Beautiful Mind
No surprises here; despite the right-wing campaign against A Beautiful Mind, it goes ahead and wins like it was supposed to, and I seriously doubt there was ever a real “controversy” here to begin with. This is like when pundits start attacking Presidential frontrunners as suddenly vulnerable in the fall and winter before an election, when there’s still almost a year to go in the campaign but the news media are already sick of it and can’t bear the thought of having the identity of the eventual nominees become obvious three months before the first primary and nine months before the conventions. So you get stories about a Paul Tsongas coming on strong or a John McCain mounting a revolution, and then when the conventions roll around Bill Clinton or George Bush get anointed just like everyone knew they would all along. In the future, therefore, when you see entertainment journalists begin talking down the presumptive Oscar winner a few weeks before the ceremony, just remember that in these situations there’s almost always less there than meets the eye.
Nominees:
Russell Crowe,
A
Beautiful Mind
Sean Penn,
I Am Sam
Will Smith,
Ali
Denzel Washington,
Training
Day
Tom Wilkinson,
In the
Bedroom
Who Should Win: Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom
Who Will Win: Denzel Washington, Training Day
Who DID Win: Denzel Washington, Training Day
Hey! It’s about time Denzel won one of these babies. Look who called it, too. Woo!
Nominees:
Halle Berry,
Monster’s
Ball
Judi Dench,
Iris
Nicole Kidman,
Moulin Rouge!
Sissy Spacek,
In the
Bedroom
Renée Zellweger,
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Who Should Win: Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball
Who Will Win: Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom
Who DID Win: Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball
Well, I can’t complain about this too much, obviously, because I obviously feel that Ms. Berry gave the superior performance in this category, so... good for the Academy.
Was anyone else surprised when they panned to Halle Berry’s mother and she turns out to be as white as the day is long? Doesn’t this seems like something I should have been made aware of before now?
Nominees:
Jim Broadbent,
Iris
Ethan Hawke,
Training
Day
Ben Kingsley,
Sexy
Beast
Ian McKellen,
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Jon Voight,
Ali
Who Should Win: Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast
Who Will Win: Ian McKellen, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring
Who DID Win: Jim Broadbent, Iris
Okay, well, obviously I didn’t know what the hell was going on here. I wrote that “I found Jim Broadbent’s all-atwitter, all-a-st-st-stutter, so-very-British-don’t-you-know affectations almost as annoying as Geoffrey Rush in Shine,” but I guess I forgot that Rush won the Oscar for that role. That was foolish of me.
Nominees:
Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Helen Mirren, Gosford Park
Maggie Smith, Gosford Park
Marisa Tomei, In the Bedroom
Kate Winslet, Iris
Who Should Win: Maggie Smith, Gosford Park
Who Will Win: Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Who DID Win: Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
So Jennifer takes the stage to accept the award, and right away I’m thinking the same thing that every heterosexual male in America who’s ever so much as seen the video box for Career Opportunities is thinking, which is: What has happened to Jennifer Connelly’s figure? Is she loaning it out to someone? Is it the same person who’s borrowing Gwyneth Paltrow’s nipples? Is this individual planning on returning them soon?
Nominees:
Robert Altman,
Gosford
Park
Ron Howard,
A
Beautiful Mind
Peter Jackson,
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
David Lynch,
Mulholland
Drive
Ridley Scott,
Black
Hawk Down
Who Should Win: Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring
Who Will Win: Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind
Who DID Win: Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind
Opie wins the—wait, that’s pretty much the same joke everyone else has told, isn’t it? Uh... how about, Richie Cunningham wins the Oscar! Hmm?
That’s the best I can do. I got nothin’. I’m sorry.
Nominees:
Guillaume
Laurant,
Amélie
Julian Fellowes,
Gosford
Park
Christopher
Nolan,
Memento
Milo Addica
and Will Rokos,
Monster’s
Ball
Wes Anderson
and Owen Wilson,
The Royal Tenenbaums
Who Should Win: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, The Royal Tenenbaums
Who Will Win: Guillaume Laurant, Amélie
Who DID Win: Julian Fellowes, Gosford Park
I said that this one was really hard to call, and I was right (too bad I don’t get to count it as right...). In retrospect it was a mistake to go against the only nominee that was also nominated for Best Picture. We learn from our mistakes.
Nominees:
Akiva Goldsman,
A
Beautiful Mind
Daniel Clowes,
Terry Zwigoff,
Ghost
World
Todd Field,
Robert Festinger,
In the
Bedroom
Frances Walsh,
Philippa Boyens,
and Peter Jackson,
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Ted Elliott,
Terry Rossio,
Joe Stillman,
and Roger
S.H. Schulman,
Shrek
Who Should Win: Daniel Clowes, Terry Zwigoff, Ghost World
Who Will Win: Akiva Goldsman, A Beautiful Mind
Who DID Win: Akiva Goldsman, A Beautiful Mind
And in one fell swoop Akiva Goldsman goes from Hollywood Hack to Hollywood’s Greatest Hack. On balance that’s probably a good thing, because now producers are more likely to pay him to churn out halfway decent screenplays instead of the crap he’s historically been more comfortable with.
Nominees:
Jimmy Neutron:
Boy Genius
Monsters,
Inc.
Shrek
Who Should Win: Shrek
Who Will Win: Shrek
Who DID Win: Shrek
And so this year’s only Triple Crown comes in the bonus category, just like last year. Should I succumb to the temptation in the future to pick bonus categories that are easy to predict in a shameless attempt to boost my average? Should I? Hmm.
So I got an amazing (if we take “amazing” to mean “much better than I’ve ever done before”) 6 of 9 right. My Synergy Quotient drops back down to 22 percent, meaning that I only agree with Hollywood in 2 of these 9 categories. This does not bother me at all. I hope to raise my predictive accuracy even higher next year, though I’m not holding my breath.
4 hours, 23 minutes: the longest Oscar ceremony ever. Right around Best Adapted Screenplay, I bet Donald Sutherland was up in the concession stand thinking, “This... is the longest day of my life.” It’s certainly been the longest night of mine. Au revoir.
—Paul
March 30, 2002
“Forty years I’ve been chasing Sidney, and what do they do? They give him
one on the same night.”
—Denzel Washington