Paul's Place > Talkin' 'bout da Movies > Paul's Oscar Pix > 2004

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I am not happy.

I am woefully unprepared for this year's Oscar ceremony, and although I'll stipulate that a significant portion of the blame for that belongs to me, a significant portion does not. I'll start at the beginning: For a variety of reasons that I'll get to in a minute, I saw virtually no theatrical movies in the latter half of 2003. In fact, from about August to the end of December I think I only saw two movies in the theater. One was Winged Migration, a holdover from the year before that was actually nominated for Best Documentary Feature at last year's Oscars, and the other one I essentially forced myself to see so I wouldn't have to plug my ears and sing "La la la, la la la, I can't hear you" to avoid having it spoiled whenever people around me started talking about it.

I. Have. Seen. Nothing.

I can identify several reasons for this, which even when taken together don't really provide an entirely satisfactory explanation. Foremost among these, probably, is the appearance in my life of a new girlfriend in late summer, who subsequently absorbed a large part of my time and made it easy to forego seeing movies on the weekend in favor of dates and social activities and, y'know, other things. My relationship with Amy coincided with the arrival of a singularly uninspiring fall movie season (and I really don't think I was the only one who didn't construct any Advent chains in anticipation of the arrival of, say, Cold Mountain), and my sudden incentive to groom myself properly and keep the apartment clean ended up taking time and mental bandwidth away from that which I otherwise would have allotted to films. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it was definitely a factor.

Just as significant, however, was my (only partially conscious) decision to yield to a near-total backlash against my own longtime cinephilia, which in truth had been a long time in coming. I tend to be, in what I hope is the least pejorative sense of the word, a dilettante, and I rarely hold on to a hobby for long. There seemed to be fewer and fewer movies coming out that I wanted to see, and it started to feel like work keeping up with the industry and reading reviews and advance looks and fighting traffic to get to the theater for the privilege of paying $9 to be assaulted with 20 minutes of commercials before the show. So I just stopped. And when I say that, I mean I really stopped. I stopped going to movies, I stopped watching movies on DVD or cable, I stopped reading about movies, I stopped watching Ebert & Roeper, I stopped listening to people talk about movies, I just stopped thinking about movies. I just needed a break.

And because I have TiVo, which allows me to skip commercials, I didn't even get exposed to movies accidentally. I don't hear movie ads on the radio either, because I no longer listen to commercial radio anymore, like, ever. Three-plus years of TiVo ownership, while largely freeing me from those pro-usury Money Tree commercials featuring the two giant caterpillars whom someone really ought to shoot in the head out of sheer compassion, have caused me to lose my pathogenic immunity to broadcast advertisements to the point where I find it almost impossible to sit through even one. In a post-Telecommunications Act of 1996 world in which Clear Channel and Infinity own everything and feel free to broadcast 20 minutes of commercials per hour on all their stations, then, there aren't a whole lot of places on the radio dial for me to turn to apart from NPR or other non-commercial stations. In fact, the only reason I haven't already subscribed to Sirius Satellite Radio is that there's no obvious good place to install the receiver in my car's dashboard, and I really really really don't want to take out my 6-disc in-dash CD changer to make room for it. Because when I ask myself, "Is $13 a month too high a price to pay to never have to listen to another radio commercial again?", the answer always comes back a resounding NO.

Where was I? Movie advertisements, right. Anyway, the point is that not only did I not watch movies during the latter half of 2003, I managed to remain almost totally unaware of the bulk of them. Amy was out of the picture, girlfriend-wise at least, by the middle of January, but my desire to watch movies hadn't really returned by then. I wasn't even fully conscious that the Oscar nominations had come out until a week or so had passed, and when I got around to seriously looking at them, the list was full of films I had never heard of. Monster? House of Sand and Fog? City of God? Pirates of the Caribbean? (Okay, admittedly I had run across that last one once or twice.) Well, this is going to take some work, I thought. No worries, though. I have until the end of March.

If only.

Because although the Oscars are usually awarded in late March, and have in fact been held in either the second half of March or the first half of April every year since 1948, this year the Olympic-caliber geniuses at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to move the ceremony up a month, to the end of February. The Academy was hoping this move would increase ratings for the telecast, though early indications are that it is likely to have the opposite effect. If they had asked me, I would have suggested that they could improve upon last year's disappointing ratings by (a) convincing Hollywood to make pictures that don't suck; (b) convincing Bush not to start a war within days of the telecast, and (c) broadcasting the ceremony in late March WHERE PEOPLE EXPECT TO FIND IT, rather than at the end of a sweeps month cluttered with Four All-New Episodes of ER You Won't Want To Miss and the conclusion of My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé. The degree of influence they can reasonably expect to have on the first two factors is understandably limited, but I humbly suggest that the third is entirely under their control.

But they didn't ask me, which is why we're facing an Oscar broadcast on February 29th. Unfortunately, because I haven't been paying any attention to movies, I didn't entirely realize this until I formally checked the date at some point around February 22nd. This gave me approximately one week to catch as many nominated films as I could and write this entire piece from scratch.

I want to explain something that I think some of you out there may not fully appreciate: Writing these Oscar pix is hard. Most years I capture my first thoughts on the year's movies several months in advance, filling in further observations as we get closer to the broadcast date. After the nominations come out I see the remaining Best Picture nominees that I haven't already seen, see other nominated film as seems appropriate, make my picks, and continue writing, typically culminating in a huge final push the day before I post the piece. Something else you may not realize: Just because I make my living from writing doesn't mean that writing is particularly easy for me. It's probably the single most exhausting thing I do, even in the summer when I cover 40-50 miles a week on my bicycle. I'm a good writer, if I may be so immodest, but I am not a particularly fast writer. I also do a lot of research for these pieces that isn't always readily apparent on the screen. My yearly Oscar Pix is far and away the biggest writing project I do that I don't actually get paid for. I'm not complaining about that, because it's something that I genuinely enjoy doing and something in which, by and large, I take pride. Because I do take pride in it, however, it's not something I want to do half-assed, and however you look at it, generating a whole Oscar piece from scratch in such a short time while also doing the necessary background work was going to require an amount of effort that I could only describe as nightmarish.

So here's how the last seven days have gone for me: I have seen four movies, two in the theater and two on DVD. I wanted to see more, but I quite literally ran out of time: I've also been working full-time during this period, and I'm taking a Spanish class that currently occupies my Wednesday evenings, so I simply reached a point where there were no free time slots left. It was not until Saturday morning that I began writing at all--I didn't even create the file until then--and since then I have spent my waking hours doing nothing but writing, heedless to the gathering filth around me that I don't have time to clean up, eating unhealthy crap, watching DVDs and searching for important scenes to refresh my memory, pounding back Advil to fight a headache that doesn't want to go away, and trying not to fall asleep. As I write this the sun is coming up on Sunday, the day of the Oscars, and I'm really hoping to be done by noon so I can take a nap to supplement the 4 hours of sleep I just got. The whole thing seems tremendously unfair to me and it's hard not to take it personally.

So if I come across as even more bitter than usual this year, that's probably why.

Again with the rules, then: Predictions offered in all eight "major" categories plus one bonus category, which this year is Best Sound for no good reason. I also indicate my own favorite in each category, to the extent that I have one at all, and you can track my progress through the years on this handy graph. I usually post a wrap-up within a few weeks after the show, though sometimes it takes a little longer. And of course every year I start off with:

I don't even know if I've seen enough movies this year to fill out a proper Top Ten list. (I know I've seen more than ten movies this year, but I also know that a lot of them don't deserve to be anywhere near a list of good films.) So I'm just gonna start typing and we'll see if I can actually make it to ten movies. First up:

American Splendor - If you didn't predict that I'd be picking this darkly humorous, Independent Film Channel-type film as my favorite, you just haven't been paying attention. American Splendor is a semi-biographical film based on the work of Harvey Pekar, the Cleveland file clerk turned underground comic writer. Pekar defies every funny-book stereotype imaginable: he doesn't create comic books about superheroes or vampires; he doesn't create creepy saucer-eyed girls with purple hair, sailor suits, and suspiciously big boobs; he isn't even really a 1960s-style "comix" figure like R. Crumb, or Art Spiegelman, or Los Bros Hernandez. He writes stories about ordinary things that happen to him in his less-eventful-than-average life, stories that don't really have a point, or a plot, and usually just kind of fizzle out at the end without what we would consider to be conventional dramatic resolution. And he can't draw worth a lick, so he gets other people, including Robert Crumb, to illustrate his stories. And it all works, somehow, because Pekar is a master narrator and has a knack for portraying the mundane through a filter of blue-collar angst. Paul Giamatti is marvelous as Pekar, whom we observe as he ineptly woos his future wife Joyce Brabner (the perfectly-cast Hope Davis); they marry, and she stands by him as he is diagnosed with, and survives, testicular cancer. American Splendor isn't perfect: the cut-scenes in which Giamatti, Davis, and the other cast members interact with their real-life counterparts on a soundstage only partially work, and the intercut footage of the real-life Pekar's infamous appearances on Late Night with David Letterman is jarring (not least because of the obvious contrivances employed to explain why the man in the Letterman footage looks a lot like Giamatti but sounds nothing like him). Still, American Splendor the movie works in the same way American Splendor the comic book works: rough around the edges, cobbled together from strangely unrelated bits, yet rendered stronger by all the awkwardness, rather than weaker.

The rest of the best, in no particular order:

Lost in Translation - Sofia Coppola's subdued, dreamlike film about the unlikely bond formed between two lonely souls (Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson) stranded far from home sits high on many critics' lists of their favorite films of 2003, and with good cause. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

I kind of feel the same way about Lost in Translation as I do about Ms. Coppola's last film The Virgin Suicides: genuinely pleased and even a little bit awestruck by it as a work of filmmaking, yet left with the nagging impression that my soul is missing some fundamental quality that would enable me to get even more out of the movie, which depresses me in a way I can't fully explain.

Capturing the Friedmans - Andrew Jarecki's searing documentary about the disintegration of the Arnold Friedman family of Great Neck, Long Island following the arrest of the father and one of the teenage sons on dozens of counts of child molestation in 1984 is one of the most improbable films to come along in a very long time. With the cooperation of most of the surviving Friedmans and many of the court and police officers who were involved in the cases, as well as access to an astonishing trove of home movies from the movie- and video-camera-obsessed Friedmans, Jarecki has created a studiously even-handed film that nevertheless builds an overwhelming case that Arnold and Jesse Friedman were innocent of the charges brought against them. Capturing the Friedmans shines a critical light on the child-abuse hysteria that swept America during the 1980s (see also the McMartin Preschool cases and, more recently, the Wenatchee cases here in Washington) while also providing extraordinary real-life footage of a family falling apart over half a decade.

Whale Rider - There's absolutely no reason I should like this film about a young Maori girl who strives to overcome gender discrimination and her grandfather's disapproval to fulfill her community's need for a new chief (uplifting? empowering? bad! bad!), but this New Zealand import had me bawling, due in large part to superb acting performances all around. Plus, any movie that features Maori war chanting gets a near-automatic thumbs up from me, just because it's so utterly cool.

Seabiscuit - The story of two rejects, a horse and his jockey, who captured America's collective heart in the 1930s is almost too perfect to be true; it therefore comes as no surprise that DreamWorks managed to make a pretty damn good movie out of Laura Hillenbrand's nonfiction book. Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, and Tobey Maguire are all perfect as Seabiscuit's owner, trainer, and jockey, respectively; the film evokes a slice of twentieth century Americana that's feels as real as anything I've seen in the movies.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - I love Amazing Tales of the Sea-type movies, as should any red-blooded adult male. Give me a movie with mizzenmasts and hornpipes and bosun's whistles and crusty old petty officers and sea chanties, and I'm a happy man. I'm actually not entirely sure I know what a sea chanty is, but I bet if I heard one I would like it. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World has mizzenmasts, and it has a bosun's whistle, and it has a crusty old petty officer, and it has a hornpipe, and it almost certainly has at least one sea chanty, and all that would be good enough for me by itself. But the film, which follows the intrepid crew of the HMS Surprise as they chase a Frog privateer called the Acheron around Cape Horn during the Napoleonic wars, leavens its (relatively infrequent) battle scenes with a deep and surprisingly humanistic story about the friendship between Capt. Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and his chief medical officer, Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), the main characters of the Patrick O'Brian novels on which the film is based. I'm gonna have to read me one of them books sometime. Crowe may in fact be a gigantic dickhead in real life, but his Capt. Aubrey is a man I'd gladly follow to the ends of the earth were he to ask; Dr. Maturin provides an intellectual counterweight to the thoughtful but action-oriented captain. Arr matey!

Finding Nemo - A good movie, but does it deserve to be here? I think of Albert Brooks, and Ellen DeGeneres, and the Australian-accented vegetarian sharks, and Willem Dafoe as Gill, the hard-case aquarium lifer, and director Andrew Stanton as the surfer-dude sea turtle, and Allison Janney as Peach, the slightly addled starfish, and I can only answer "yes."

I was happy to see Pixar split with Disney last month, incidentally, because I don't think Disney should be allowed to bathe in Pixar's reflected glory anymore. Still, I'm mindful of Chris Suellentrop's observation in Slate last year, too: "Pixar needs Disney because that's how it outsources its Evil: The partnership enables Pixar to reap the rewards of its great movies, while Disney gets blamed for the Stepford theme parks filled with Woodys and Buzzes, the merchandising tie-ins at McDonald's and elsewhere, and the rapacious defenses of their shared intellectual property." Something to think about.

A Mighty Wind - Not as good as Best in Show, but then, what is? Credit to Jennifer Coolidge for delivering the single funniest line (the one about the model trains) in a movie last year.

Mystic River - Clint Eastwood's latest film hasn't run short of praise this year, and rightly so; it earns a place on my list owing to stellar acting by the leads, particularly Tim Robbins. Someone wanna explain the ending to me, though?

Dirty Pretty Things - Superb British import starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as Okwe, a surgeon forced to live on the margins of society after illegally immigrating from Nigeria, who stumbles upon an organ-selling ring preying on London's poor immigrant community. Also here are the freakishly beautiful Audrey Tautou, looking sweetly dowdy as Okwe's Turkish friend Senay, and Sergi López (With a Friend Like Harry), who is as entertainingly creepy in English as he is in French.

Movies I Wish I'd Seen: The Cooler (William H. Macy in Vegas!); The Station Agent, which sounds agreeably quirky; Shattered Glass (Anakin Skywalker chumps the editorial staff of The New Republic!); The School of Rock - Do I really want to see this? It's written by the brilliant writer-actor Mike White, which rules, but it's directed by asshole director Richard Linklater, which sucks. Should I? Shouldn't I? I just don't know. Well, it's got Jack Black in it, which is pretty cool. I guess I'll catch it at some point; Lilja 4-Ever, a 3-hanky offering from the Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, a personal fave.

All of these movies have departed from theaters but have not yet come to video, which pretty much means that I can't legally watch them anywhere in the world. Moreover, none of them seem to be playing on any of the 15 or 20 digital HBO channels I receive, which usually seems to be the case whenever I want to watch a recent movie but am too lazy to rent it. Why do I keep paying for these channels when I never watch them? I probably should have canceled HBO a long time ago, but it seemed like a lot of trouble to go to considering that I would have just had to resubscribe whenever they finally get around to showing the final season of "The Sopranos." Plus they show naked women on "Real Sex," which makes for a nice treat when I remember to TiVo it, which isn't often.

Movies I Would Have Seen If the Soulless Cretins At the Motion Picture Academy Hadn't Scheduled the Oscars a Month Too Early: Monster - I've been watching the Independent Spirit Awards while writing this, and the more I see about Monster the madder I get that I haven't yet had a chance to see it; City of God, which I honestly don't know much about except that it's Brazilian and is supposed to be good; In America (They're Irish immigrants--yet it's not the 1880s or the 1930s!), Fog of War, Errol Morris' acclaimed documentary about former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara; 21 Grams, which looks weird; Cold Mountain, which I don't really want to see but feel like I should because it got nominated for a few awards but not as many as everyone expected. Each of these movies is currently playing at a theater somewhere around here, but there wasn't enough time to see them. Grrr!

On to the nominees...

Nominees:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lost in Translation
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Mystic River
Seabiscuit

Who Should Win: Seabiscuit

This is a hard one this year, because Seabiscuit and Master and Commander are probably just about tied for my affections, but I gotta pick one. As always, then, the nominees in decreasing order of irrationality:

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - I am so sick of hobbits. I am so sick of hobbits! If I never see another @#$%&!! hobbit again in my life it will be too #%#$&!! soon!! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!

Okay. Just wanted to get that off my chest. As with The Two Towers last year, this was another movie that I didn't really dislike, but which didn't really stir any feeling in me one way or the other. Amy got mad at me for yawning during the battle scenes, but I couldn't help it. They were that boring. It was nice to see Gollum again, and that one hobbit wasn't completely irritating, but for the most part I no longer cared about the characters and I've already forgotten most of the plot.

I'll tell you who I did like, though, was the leader of the Orcs. Dude had personality, and I for one was sorry to see him meet his end. Too bad he lived and died in J.R.R. Tolkien's world, in which you're either the blue-eyed, flaxen-haired personification of Good or the gnarled, black-skinned personification of Evil, there are no shades of grey, Orcs aren't allowed to have free will, and if you have the extreme bad luck to be born one you're destined to be slaughtered at the hands of the Royalists so they can install their own overlord, who of course is a Great Man because he has some trifling genetic connection to a king who died thousands of years ago. There's more moral complexity in the Harry Potter series, for crying out loud. (See, for example, the way Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix reveals the sainted dead James Potter to have been a real jerkweed while at Hogwarts, bullying Harry's future antagonist Severus Snape without cause.) Remind me again why the hippies fell in love with this crap?

Mystic River - I guess the remaining four movies are bunched pretty close together for me. All four are on my Top Ten list, which might be a record. Mystic River only falls to fourth because I perceive the other three as stronger, not because I have anything against it.

Lost in Translation - Again, very good movie. It falls to third mostly because of the mild nagging feeling I mentioned above.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - I feel inadequate because I haven't yet read any of the books; they're not necessary to enjoy the movie, but I feel that if I had read one or two I would be more invested in the characters and would appreciate the film more, and therefore rank it higher. Who knows.

Seabiscuit - I haven't read Seabiscuit yet either, but I did watch the American Experience documentary, so I guess I do feel like I already knew the principals before I saw the film. The history buff in me is better acquainted with America in the 1930s than with the British navy in 1805, so I guess I want Seabiscuit to win.

Who Will Win: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

This one feels like a lock--actually, most of the categories feel like locks this year. Return of the King will get what amounts to a roll-up award for the whole trilogy, because the Academy would have felt foolish if they'd given Best Picture to The Fellowship of the Ring, say, and then The Two Towers came along and was even better and then they'd have to give it to them again.

Nominees:
Johnny Depp, Overrated Disneyland Ride
Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog
Jude Law, Cold Mountain
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
Sean Penn, Mystic River

Who Should Win: Bill Murray, Lost in Translation

Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation is very much another version of Herman Blume, the depressed industrialist Murray played in the wonderful Rushmore: a rich, powerful man afflicted with a deep, existential sadness with which he's only just beginning to come to terms. There's something about a perpetually hangdog character that makes us want to laugh when we know we shouldn't, which may be why it takes an accomplished comic actor like Bill Murray to sell the role, with all its complexities, so completely. I don't think he's going to win, but I hope he does.

Who Will Win: Sean Penn, Mystic River

This was supposed to be a two-man race between Sean Penn and Bill Murray, but then Johnny Depp went and won the SAG award, which complicates things and pisses me off to no end. I may love amazing tales of the sea, but I'll be cold in my grave before I ever give the Walt Disney Company nine bucks of my money to watch a two-and-a-half-hour commercial for a DISNEYLAND RIDE. Michael Eisner should be paying me to watch it, is my attitude. So the hell with Johnny Depp and the hell with his movie. I don't think he's going to win anyway. Sean Penn did well in Mystic River with a role that was showier than that of his co-star Tim Robbins, and this is his fourth go-round with the Academy without a single win to show for it. I think they're going to give it to him this year.

Missing:  Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dirty Pretty Things

Ejiofor really made that movie, and he could have a great career ahead of him in Hollywood, if he wants one. Gotta get rid of that name, though. Ejiofor can't possibly expect to have any kind of career unless he finds himself a name that a person with the intelligence of the average studio executive can pronounce. Here's hoping he gets a hip, happening, 21st century moniker that'll look good on the marquees. Like, "Jordan Hunter." Or, "Hunter Jordan."

Nominees:
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider
Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give
Samantha Morton, In America
Charlize Theron, Monster
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams

Who Should Win: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider

I suppose this is kind of a default selection, because Whale Rider is the only one of these movies that I've seen. I'd probably go with Castle-Hughes anyway. I don't think I've ever seen a better actress her age, and with that talent and those beautiful Maori features she really has a bright career ahead of her. I see she's got a role in Star Wars: Episode III. Good!

Who Will Win: Charlize Theron, Monster

I'm largely indifferent towards Charlize Theron in general, but she's a very attractive woman who gained 30 pounds and junked herself up for her role in Monster, and she deserves props for that. Combine that with the awesome power of the Ho Rule (loosely stated, "Everybody loves a ho!"), which holds such sway over the Academy voters who like to pigeonhole actresses into certain predefined archetypes, and there doesn't seem to be much of a chance that she won't walk away with the Oscar.

Nominees:
Alec Baldwin, The Cooler
Benicio Del Toro, 21 Grams
Djimon Hounsou, In America
Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai

Who Should Win: Tim Robbins, Mystic River

Here, again, Mystic River is the only one of these five movies that I've seen, so that makes this an easy category for me. If I saw the others I might come across a performance that I liked better, but I'm thoroughly comfortable picking Robbins, because he really was terrific in Mystic River, which may even have been his best film to date. Here's a guy who came out of an unimaginably horrible childhood experience to pull together a relatively normal adult life, yet he truthfully hasn't been the same since his abduction and everyone still walks on eggshells around him, which can't possibly help; when he finds himself embroiled in a murder investigation that intimately involves his friends and family, he finally starts, little by little, to crack. Robbins is so good, so understated, in the role that he made me nervous when he was on screen, and I have to salute that.

Who Will Win: Tim Robbins, Mystic River

There doesn't seem to be a lot of disagreement here among the professional Oscar prognostimacators, so Robbins is a pretty safe guess. He's probably not going to uncork a Michael Moore-esque anti-Bush harangue during his acceptance speech, but wouldn't that be cool?

Nominees:
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog
Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April
Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River
Holly Hunter, Thirteen
Renée Zellweger, Cold Mountain

Who Should Win: Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River

Another default pick. She's not going to win, and I'm a little pissed that my Synergy Quotient is going to be dragged down simply because I haven't gotten around to seeing the other movies. I have nothing further to add here.

Who Will Win: Renée Zellweger, Cold Mountain

I haven't seen Zellweger's performance in Cold Mountain, obviously, but it sounds like essentially the same role Jewel played in Ride with the Devil a few years back, and given that I'm still not entirely convinced that Jewel and Renée Zellweger are not actually the same person the whole thing just seems unnecessarily confusing to me. So as much as I like Renée Zellweger I'm afraid I simply can't support giving her the award.

This is getting really really long. I can't believe I'm still writing. Onward:

Nominees:
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Fernando Meirelles, City of God
Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Who Should Win: Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola is well on her way, I truly believe, to becoming the best director of my generation, and with Francis running out of gas I'm so happy that there's another Coppola ready to receive the baton and run with it in the new century. She has already developed a compelling directorial style that's wholly distinct from anything her father has done, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.

I bet there's a part of Francis Ford Coppola that secretly doesn't want Sofia to win, what with Megalopolis taking forfreakingever to get off the ground and the fact that his last film was a John Grisham adaptation released seven years ago. Does he even want to be a director anymore?

Who Will Win: Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I guess I can't really get too upset about Peter Jackson's inevitability in this category, though it comes 9 years too late and for the wrong movie. As long as his next movie isn't about damned hobbits, all will be forgiven.

Missing: Andrew Jarecki, Capturing the Friedmans

I have a great deal of respect for a guy who co-founds Moviefone, makes a zillion bucks off of it, decides to use the money to make a whimsical little documentary short about birthday clowns in New York City, falls ass-first into a decade-old story of child molestation and injustice in the process, and ends up making a devastating feature-length docco about the case that indicts the criminal justice system and a period in recent American history that also happens to be as compelling as any movie made last year. That's all I'm tryin' to say.

Nominees:
Denys Arcand, The Barbarian Invasions
Steve Knight, Dirty Pretty Things
Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds, Finding Nemo
Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan, Kirsten Sheridan, In America
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation

Who Should Win: Steve Knight, Dirty Pretty Things

I was happy to see Dirty Pretty Things show up here, because it reminded me that I had seen it last spring and really liked it. So I want it to win.

Who Will Win: Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation

This is probably the category I'm least sure about. My thinking is, they can't give her Best Director because they have to save it for Peter Jackson, but they like her movie so they're going to give her Best Original Screenplay. Well, good for her. I have no objections.

Nominees:
Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, American Splendor
Bráulio Mantovani, City of God
Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Brian Helgeland, Mystic River
Gary Ross, Seabiscuit

Who Should Win: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, American Splendor

Well, this is a no-brainer, innit? The movies in the screenwriting categories are always vastly better on average than the Best Picture nominees, which is why I call these the real Best Picture categories.

Who Will Win: Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I'm pretty much throwing up my hands here, too. I'm guessing this category will get swept up in the tide, but it really could be any of the nominees, except of course for the one I like the best.

Nominees:
Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer, Jeff Wexler, The Last Samurai
Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges, Hammond Peek, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Paul Massey, Doug Hemphill, Art Rochester, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Christopher Boyes, David Parker, David E. Campbell, Lee Orloff, Overrated Disneyland Ride
Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer, Tod A. Maitland, Seabiscuit

Who Should Win: Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges, Hammond Peek, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Look, what the hell do I know about sound mixing? What makes these five films better than the other 251 movies declared eligible for this year's awards? I'm sure the voters had their reasons, though I don't know what they were. Return of the King was very loud, so I'll go with that.

Who Will Win: Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges, Hammond Peek, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

So I did some checking, and over the last ten years the Best Sound award has almost always gone either to a really loud picture or a picture that cleaned up in the other categories. Return of the King is a safe bet in both cases, and this year I'm all about the safe bets.

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Finished, and with nary a moment to spare. Check back in a few days for my wrap-up. I need a nap.

--Paul
February 29, 2004

"Look, y'know, I, uh, I was gonna clean up, but why should I give you any false notions?"
--Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti), American Splendor