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2003 AWARDS Feb. 29, 2004 |
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THE 2003 OSCARS |
 SEAN PENN in 'MYSTIC RIVER' ...will he charm the voters? |
year for the Oscar awards
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
Billy Crystal is back as the host and it was a very good year for movies, so how can the Feb. 29 Academy Awards show posssibly be a turkey? Well, as the poet once said, "Let me count the ways."
But I'm always the eternal optimist. I never give up hoping they'll give the Oscars to the right people for the right reasons. Fortunately, I'm not the same way about presidential elections. If I were, I'd have jumped off something quite tall a long, long time ago.
Truthfully, though, it looks good. Crystal is the best Oscar host since I started watching the ceremonies in the early 1950s when they first came to TV. I can almost imagine what he'll do with this year's batch of silly Hollywood stuff--from the ever-weirder antics of the Jacksons, Michael and Janet; and the "Benifer" on-again, off-again romance, to Diane Keaton's nude scene and Ah-nold's rise to power in Sacramento. It's been a year designed especially for a great opening monologue for Billy Crystal--or, better yet, one of those mah-velous Oscar musical numbers he sings and dances to every so often.
And look at the nominees! All those little non-Hollywood, non-studio pictures like "Monster" and "Whale Rider" and "Pieces of April" and "In America" and "Thirteen" racking up scads of nominations! Would you ever believe a year in which Jack Nicholson had a couple of big hits and didn't get nominated? Can you imagine a year in which Sean Penn and Alec Baldwin are favorites to win? Is it possible this could be the year that Meryl Streep wears the see-through dress, not Cher?
Yes, this could be the year the Oscars finally kiss establishment Hollywood goodbye. There isn't much of it left anyway. Miramax and the other independents have been winning most of the big awards lately, a sure sign that the "major" studios that invented the Oscars in 1929 have now vertically-integrated themselves into oblivion.
For the first time in a
long while, all five of the Best Picture nominees are reasonably
worthy films: "Lord
of the Rings: The Return of the King," the final chapter in the three-film "ring"
fantasy cycle from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien; "Lost in Translation," a tender romantic comedy from a first-time
female director, Sofia Coppola; "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," the first movie adaptation of a Patrick
O'Brien novel--and possibly the best-ever nautical movie; "Mystic River," a brooding, awesomely-acted mystery
with soul, directed by the constantly surprising Clint Eastwood,
and "Seabiscuit," a sentimental tale about the redemption
of a great thoroughbred race horse--and nearly everybody connected
to this miracle horse.
I'm sure the winner will be either "Mystic River" or, most likely, "Lord
of the Rings: The Return of the King." I think the Eastwood film is the best-crafted film
of the bunch, but there's a feeling that the Academy owes the
"Ring" trilogy a Best Picture Oscar. Each of the previous
films in the cycle was nominated for Best Picture, but failed
to win. Taken together, the three films are a stunning accomplishment--by
far the most successful fantasy film ever made. But then the
Academy never has been too partial to fantasies.
Actually, I won't stamp my feet and squeal if any of these films wins, except for "Lost in Translation," which I consider a good film that lost its way at the halfway mark and never really did anything meaningful with its wonderful central storyline. I can think of several films that deserve to be in that final five, especially "Cold Mountain." Still, the Academy loves to reward promising new talent, so maybe Ms. Coppola will inherit the miracle wrap this year.
In the Best Actor category, I think Sean Penn is the obvious best. His performance as the anguished father, whose lovely daughter has been violently murdered in "Mystic River," lingers long in the memory. Because he's a shady character who has played a hand in a murder or two himself, he's doubly haunted by the fear that some kind of cosmic justice may have caused him to suffer this tragedy.
But Penn is an anti-establishsment figure whose attitude toward "Hollywood" seldom has won him friends there. Perhaps he'll be made to suffer, like his character, by watching his Oscar dream die.
I would not be shocked to see the Academy reward former "Saturday Night Live" comic Bill Murray of "Lost in Translation," who plays a jaded American film star, tumbling into an "accidental" romance with a young married woman while filming a commercial in Japan. Murray has drifted toward irrelevance in recent years, so this role gave him a chance to turn a page in his career. Still, I found his performance nothing really special, though happily a little more subtle than one usually finds him.
It also wouldn't knock me over if the Academy gave the Oscar to Johnny Depp for his zany pirate character in "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." Depp has displayed incredible versatility through his career and is long overdue for a major award. What's more, the film was immensely popular. Yet I found Depp's playing a little too cartoonish for my taste. The fact that he's also an anti-establishment figure, who lives overseas, may not help his cause. But, in all fairness, Depp is a genial expatriate who always steps forward to promote his pictures for the studio, so I doubt that he carries the negative baggage Sean Penn carries.
Infinitely more worthy this year are the performances by the other two nominees: Ben Kingsley, as the stubborn Iranian emigre in "House of Sand and Fog," and Jude Law as the tragedy-plagued Confederate soldier, making his way home to Nicole Kidman in "Cold Mountain." Both give extremely strong performances. Even though Kingsley is a former winner (for "Gandhi" in 1982) and Law is an up and coming new star, I think they're both long shots this year.
In the Best Actress category, I can't see justice if the award goes to anybody but Charlize Theron for her remarkable transformation from screen glamour girl into serial killer Aileen Wournos in "Monster." This isn't just the case of a stunningly beautiful actress putting on weight and taking off makeup to change her image. This is a world-class great performance that will propel Theron into the top ranks of Hollywood stars.
For my money, only one other nominee has a long shot chance at stealing the award: Diane Keaton, who revitalized her career overnight by playing a middleaged woman who suddenly finds herself falling in love with a reprehensible womanizer (Jack Nicholson at his best) in "Something's Gotta Give," one of the most entertaining comedies of the year. Keaton surely will also get major bonus points with Academy voters for having done a scene with full frontal nudity at an age when most actresses would suffer an emotional breakdown at the very thought of it. (This makes her the low-carb edition of Kathy Bates, who got naked in a hot tub with Nicholson in 2002.)
The other nominees--Samantha Morton of "In America," Naomi Watts
of "21 Grams" and Keisha
Castle-Hughes of "Whale
Rider"--all come from "little" movies and aren't
in the league of Theron. Castle-Hughes, a non-actor recruited
to play the Maori girl in the New Zealand film about tribal customs,
seems to me especially out of place in this company.
In the Supporting Actor class, Tim
Robbins of "Mystic
River" is my choice, although he has to buck a steady stream
of bias from those Academy members who resent his left-wing politics
and his frequent use of the Oscar podium, along with consort
Susan Sarandon, to espouse his political views. As the grown-up
victim of a notorious child abduction and rape case, Robbins
is spellbinding. This is by far the best thing he's ever done--and
he's done lots of fine things.
My second choice would be Alec Baldwin as the sinister casino boss in "The Cooler." Baldwin might have played that part as a straight-out heavy, but instead gives the man considerable depth, making him all the more interesting. This is a turning point piece of acting, so I'm confident we'll see Baldwin back in the winners' circle before long.
Though Ken Watanabe of "The Last Samurai" is very strong, his character isn't as interesting as the ones Robbins and Baldwin played and I feel he'll be left behind with the other nominees, Benicio Del Toro of "21 Grams" and Djimon Hounsou of "In America."
In the Supporting Actress field, I find the closest competition of all the acting categories. The favorite should be Renee Zellweger as the plucky mountain girl of "Cold Mountain," already a Golden Globe winner for the part. Something else will be working for her: The feeling that she was ignored after giving a rousing performance in last year's "Chicago." I feel Zellweger is very versatile and not afraid to take chances, so I'll be pleased if she wins.
But I also have very strong feelings for Holly Hunter, whose performance as a mother, barely able to cope with her seemingly hellbent teenage daughter in "Thirteen" reminds us what a fine actress she is. Hunter won the Best Actress Oscar for her odd performance in "The Piano," a film I loathed, so I'd be happy to see her score with a performance I really admire.
Marcia Gay Harden, a previous winner in this category for "Pollock," is also magnificent in "Mystic River" as the wife who's terrified that her husband may be a murderer. Patricia Clarkson of TV's "Six Feet Under" also knocked me out with her very wryly comic performance as the cancer-afflicted mom in the deliriously entertaining "Pieces of April." And Shoreh Aghdashloo, who plays the movingly sympathetic wife of Ben Kingsley in "House of Sand and Fog" also gives a deeply sensitive and effective performance. This is the only category where I'll be pleased no matter who takes the Oscar home.
In the Best Director category, I haven't seen "City of God," for which Fernando Meirelles is nominated, so I'll confine myself to the other four contenders: Peter Jackson for "Lord of the Rings, etc.," Clint Eastwood for "Mystic River," Peter Weir for "Master and Commander, etc." and Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation." I'm pulling for Jackson, whose achievement with the three "Ring" movies is nothing short of spectacular, even though both Eastwood and Weir are deserving for their flawless films.
Still, there's always the chance that female voters will pull for Sofia Coppola, since women are so seldom nominated for directing, and the men may also vote for her as a sign of encouragement to a young director of great promise. The popularity of her dad, Francis Ford Coppola, with Academy voteres can't be discounted either. Then, finally, there's the feeling that everybody may want to make amends to poor Sofia for all those attrocious and mean-spirited reviews she received when she made her acting debut in her father's "The Godfather, Part III." If she wins, I hope she blows off all those critics from the podium. I'd consider that a magic moment indeed.
Finally, here's a last prediction: If "Lost in Translation" takes the Best Picture Oscar, Sean Penn, Charlize Theron, Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins the acting awards and Sofia Coppola the directing Oscar, I'm predicting the Hollywood sign will collapse as the official sign that The Establishment is history and the New Age has arrived.
©2004 by Ron Miller. The Sean Penn photo is courtesy of Warner Bros. and Malpaso Productions, ©2003.
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