Friday, March 21, 2003

if i were voting

Best Picture - The Pianist
Hmmm.... In a perfect world I wouldn't have to choose from this year's nominees. I could easily vote for Adaptation or Minority Report or any number of films released last year before getting to Chicago, The Hours, The Pianist, The Two Towers and Gangs Of New York, but this is not a perfect world. The Pianist, by default. I'm too aware of what a great movie musical looks like to be taken in by Chicago. Gangs Of New York isn't close to Martin Scorsese's best work, The Hours is literary in the worst way, and The Two Towers isn't as good as Fellowship Of The Ring.

Best Actor - Nicolas Cage
This is a much tougher category, and I can find things to recommend in all five performances - the operatic grandeur of Daniel Day-Lewis, the ascetic cunning of Adrien Brody, Jack Nicholson's refusal to rely on his charisma or his familiar persona and the burnt-out ache in Michael Caine's performance. Finally, though, I'd go with the subtle self-loathing of Nicolas Cage's Charlie and the confident indifference of Nicolas Cage's Donald, twin screenwriters in the year's most narratively daring film.

Best Actress - Diane Lane
I'm torn between two women whose careers I've followed through highs and, occasionally, remarkable lows (Julianne Moore in Assassins? Nine Months?) Here's the thing. Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger are parts of an ensemble. Salma Hayek, Moore and Diane Lane carry their pictures. That is, a batter who hits .350 with 30 home runs and 120 RBIs is a lot more valuable to a team that has no one who hits over .290, or has more than 20 home runs, than to a team with three or four .300 hitters. I'd go with Lane, in part because Moore is starting to get that inevitable vibe - she's going to win sometime for something - while Lane may never get another part this good.

Best Director - Roman Polanski
I've mentioned this in other parts of the Oscar preview, but it's coming down to Roman Polanski. Of course, none of my favourite directorial efforts this year were nominated - I'd say Steven Spielberg may have been the most deserving director this year for the one-two punch of Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can. Polanski, though, is a great, dark ironist, and he does as much with Babelsburg Studio sets of The Pianist as Scorsese does with his Cinecitta New York.

Best Supporting Actress - Catherine Zeta-Jones
There are times when you give way to historical inevitability. In the absence of nominations for Claire Danes in Igby Goes Down, Samantha Morton in Minority Report and Bebe Neuwirth in Tadpole, I'd have to go with Zeta-Jones. She may be indecently successful and way too pleased with herself, but she certainly delivers on camera - I'd have voted for her last year for her magnificently malevolent movie star in America's Sweethearts, a character half persian cat and half scorpion.

Best Supporting Actor - Chris Cooper
A veteran character actor in a great, weird supporting role - it's the sort of thing the award was made for, and even with the usual strength of this category, Chris Cooper stands out as the obsessive redneck plant poacher John LaRoche.

Animated Feature - Spirited Away
I didn't care for Lilo & Stitch, I didn't see Treasure Planet and I thought the great virtue of Ice Age was the stellar voicework of Ray Romano, Dennis Leary and John Leguizamo. Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron has all that goddamned Bryan Adams music. Miyazaki is a giant - and Disney's actually releasing Kiki's Delivery Service and Laputa with Spirited Away in April - and it would be nice to see the Academy honour him.

Screenplay - Adapted, Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman Original, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Alfonso and Carlos Cuaron
It's a script that's probably too odd for the Academy voters - as was Being John Malkovich, but I'd vote for it. In the "original" screenplay category, there are two Spanish films, an uncredited remake of a 50s film (Far From Heaven), a script that acknowledges a literary source (Gangs Of New York) and Nia Vardolos's My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is based on her one-woman show. I'd probably vote for Y Tu Mama Tambien, just by default. At least it's actually original.

Cinematography - Ed Lachman, Far From Heaven
None of the films in this category (Chicago, Far From Heaven, Gangs Of New York, The Pianist, Road To Perdition) has a contemporary setting, so whose lie about history do we prefer? I'd go with Lachman's work on Far From Heaven, simply because that gelid 50s style that shoots in nature and makes it look like a studio strikes me as a far more difficult challenge than going into the studio and creating the world you need.

Art Direction - Dante Ferretti, Gangs Of New York
I'm inclined to go with the Academy trend and pick the film with the Most Art Direction, and just say Gangs Of New York - Dante Ferretti's CineCitta sets are jaw-dropping. Oddly, The Pianist was not nominated in this category - does the Academy think those parts of Poland are still standing?

Score - Philip Glass, The Hours

Song - Lose Yourself, Eminem
Lose Yourself is the only song that I remember among the five nominees, and even as a non-connoisseur of rap, I can recognize its electrifying force. OK, shoot me. I like Philip Glass. I'd probably be torn between Glass's insistent buzz beneath the surface of The Hours, like Yeats's bees, or else I'd consider Elmer Bernstein's lush work on Far From Heaven.

Categories nobody cares about
Costume design - Colleen Atwood, CHICAGO
Editing - Martin Walsh, CHICAGO
Makeup - John Jackson and Beatrice De Alba, FRIDA
Sound - Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges and Hammond Peek, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
Sound editing - Ethan Van der
Ryn and Michael Hopkins THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
Visual effects - THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS

I've not seen enough of the nominees to have an opinion on animated short, live action short, documentary short, foreign film and documentary feature.

I do have a theory that Michael Moore won't win documentary feature for Bowling For Columbine. First, he's too fat. That is the great prejudice in Hollywood, you know. Second, he attacked Charlton Heston in his own home. If you're in Hollywood, you may think Chuck is a reactionary nightmare, but you don't say it in public. Third, Bowling For Columbine has made a bunch of money, and if the Academy hates anything more than a documentary, it's a documentary that makes money.