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oscar nominations
yeah, so, first day at The New Job, nothing to do, boss-man has been (comprehensively -- i know, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darthrami, you warned me, but there's really no way to appreciate it until it's happening) pointing out and reviewing the obvious for over an hour but is now in a meeting, so i'm without tasks. solution: heckle the oscar noms.
best picture
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
this category is always such a crapshoot, because it's so rarely really about anything like a qualitative assessment of the pictures released in a given year. it's not as much of a toss-up as best director, but it's close. this is a tough field for me to predict, given especially the fact that i've only seen two of the nominees. :-) i've heard excellent things about all of them, but frankly i think seabiscuit doesn't have a shot. i'm tempted to say the same about lost in translation, but that may be because i don't think much of sofia coppola. (of course, i didn't think chicago would seriously win last year, so shows what i know.) but i do think it's going to come down to RotK, M&C, and mystic river. i haven't seen mystic river, but it's got a lot of advantages in the form of previous nominees and winners. i think the fact of russell crowe may hurt master and commander, frankly. and i think being franchisey and genre may hurt lord of the rings, although there seems to be a general sense that this is the year that film's ship, so to speak, will come in. still, i think it's actually peter jackson's ship that's coming in, and i don't see the best picture award coming to RotK, no matter how much we all want it to.
prediction: mystic river
actor in a lead role
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog
Jude Law, Cold Mountain
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
Sean Penn, Mystic River
johnny depp? are you freakin' kidding me?!
yeah, so i don't think he really has a prayer. the best actress category gets sloppy sometimes, and gives an award that might more properly be called Most Fun Performance By An Actress In A Lead Role, or Biggest Difference Between The Performance We Expected And The Performance We Got From An Actress In A Lead Role (gwyneth paltrow in shakespeare in love, anyone?), but best actor tends to be pretty solid -- except when it's Decent Performance By A Guy We Should Have Given An Award For Some Previous Performance In A Lead Role (russell crowe in gladiator, which if you ask me was actually an award for his work in the insider).
of the other four nominees, i've seen exactly none of the performances. (so technically, for all i know, johnny depp's performance could be the best of the bunch. but given this field, i'm inclined to doubt it.) mr. ben kingsley has a fine reputation, and may be a good candidate to win based on that and the fact that, based on my understanding of the film, he plays an antagonist who's not actually a bad sort. sean penn is, or at any rate once was, a sort of darling of bet-you-didn't-know-he-had-it-in-him. but he's also sort of a troublemaker, isn't he? i frankly have a hard time imagining bill murray giving an oscar-worthy performance. probably my prejudice rather than his limitations. jude law: he'll win something someday, but i don't think this is his year.
prediction: sean penn
actress in a lead role
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider
Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give
Samantha Morton, In America
Charlize Theron, Monster
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams
i'm going completely on buzz, here, because i've seen none of these movies. i haven't even heard much about in america or 21 grams, actually. my feeling about the rest of the field is this: i'd love to see the girl from whale rider win, but she's like, what, fourteen? kids don't tend to win the lead-actor categories; even when they're in tough, meaty roles, they get nominated in supporting-actor because that's where they can win. diane keaton has some clout, but hrm, comedy. (she's hilarious! but that's not what brings in the accolades.) on the other hand, charlize theron has been steadily building up her cred for a while now, and everything i hear about monster suggests to me that this is the year she finally proves to the industry that she is not, in fact, ashley judd.
prediction: charlize theron
actor in a supporting role
Alec Baldwin, The Cooler
Benicio Del Toro, 21 Grams
Djimon Hounsou, In America
Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai
another toughie, partly because the category is so often unpredictable and partly because i haven't seen the movies. alec baldwin and tim robbins are adversely affected by being white guys. (in this category, yes they are.) alec baldwin is further hurt by being, well, alec baldwin. benicio del toro is adversely affected by having won before. (didn't he win for traffic?) i see it coming down to watanabe (winning the Graham Green Award For Being The Actual Ethnic Star Of A White-Man-Goes-Native Picture) and hounsou (possibly winning the award for Decent Performance By A Guy We Should Have Given An Award For Some Previous Performance In A Supporting Role, because damn, he should have won for gladiator -- for which he wasn't even nominated).
a large part of the cast of RotK could have been nominated here and held their heads high. i don't include orlando bloom in this group, nor dominic monaghan or john rhys-davis (a tougher call), nor even really sir ian mckellen, whose work was better in FotR (and obviously i don't include elijah wood, who would have to be [a] in the lead actor category and [b] puzzled by the decision to nominate him at all); but a strong case could be made for nominating (possibly) viggo mortenson, david wenham, or billy boyd, or (certainly) john noble, sean astin, or -- my personal what-do-you-mean-no-nod choices -- hugo weaving or andy serkis. the trouble is, in an ensemble cast that size, it's hard to single any one person out as being the best of the bunch. (i do think this is contributing to my feeling that serkis and weaving's performances were stronger than the rest, though, because they were so much closer to the Solo Act end of the spectrum.)
prediction: djimon hounsou
actress in a supporting role
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog
Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April
Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River
Holly Hunter, thirteen
Renee Zellweger, Cold Mountain.
i haven't even heard of pieces of april. this woman from house of sand and fog may have a good chance; see above re: ben kingsley, also supporting categories favoring the offbeat and "ethnic". mystic river is an odds-on favorite in any category that doesn't include return of the king, but marcia gay harden just won like a year ago. the academy loves holly hunter; but there's also, i fear, a better-than-average chance renee zellweger could get a lot of Sorry About Chicago votes. i think her two previous nominations have been complete embarrassments, but hey -- this could be different.
prediction: renee zellweger
best director
Fernando Meirelles, City of God
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
this is always the toughest category for me to predict, but i can say this: i confidently expect that sofia coppola will not win. i don't know anything about this city of god film, unfortunately; i think it's down to clint eastwood and the two guys named peter. and while eastwood and peter weir would ordinarily be strong contenders, everything i hear makes me think everybody's thinking this is the year peter jackson gets the pot -- like they haven't been patting him on the back before his work was done, but now that it is, oh yeah.
prediction: peter jackson
original score
Big Fish, Danny Elfman
Cold Mountain, Gabriel Yared
Finding Nemo, Thomas Newman
House of Sand and Fog, James Horner
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Howard Shore.
three previous winners, and john williams isn't nominated (though horner and shore can give him a run for his money, that's for sure). tough call. i like howard shore's music an awful lot, but that's not to say i feel comfortable predicting a winner in this category.
i can't actually predict winners for many of the other categories, and i can't even really heckle the nominees. so i'm done for now. it should be noted that i find all of this more silly and entertaining than anything else; i don't think the nominees even always reflect the best five whatever in a given year, still less is the winner usually the very best. and my predictions are based on what i think will, rather than what i think should, be the outcome. we'll see. :-)
darthrami, you warned me, but there's really no way to appreciate it until it's happening) pointing out and reviewing the obvious for over an hour but is now in a meeting, so i'm without tasks. solution: heckle the oscar noms.best picture
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
this category is always such a crapshoot, because it's so rarely really about anything like a qualitative assessment of the pictures released in a given year. it's not as much of a toss-up as best director, but it's close. this is a tough field for me to predict, given especially the fact that i've only seen two of the nominees. :-) i've heard excellent things about all of them, but frankly i think seabiscuit doesn't have a shot. i'm tempted to say the same about lost in translation, but that may be because i don't think much of sofia coppola. (of course, i didn't think chicago would seriously win last year, so shows what i know.) but i do think it's going to come down to RotK, M&C, and mystic river. i haven't seen mystic river, but it's got a lot of advantages in the form of previous nominees and winners. i think the fact of russell crowe may hurt master and commander, frankly. and i think being franchisey and genre may hurt lord of the rings, although there seems to be a general sense that this is the year that film's ship, so to speak, will come in. still, i think it's actually peter jackson's ship that's coming in, and i don't see the best picture award coming to RotK, no matter how much we all want it to.
prediction: mystic river
actor in a lead role
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog
Jude Law, Cold Mountain
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
Sean Penn, Mystic River
johnny depp? are you freakin' kidding me?!
yeah, so i don't think he really has a prayer. the best actress category gets sloppy sometimes, and gives an award that might more properly be called Most Fun Performance By An Actress In A Lead Role, or Biggest Difference Between The Performance We Expected And The Performance We Got From An Actress In A Lead Role (gwyneth paltrow in shakespeare in love, anyone?), but best actor tends to be pretty solid -- except when it's Decent Performance By A Guy We Should Have Given An Award For Some Previous Performance In A Lead Role (russell crowe in gladiator, which if you ask me was actually an award for his work in the insider).
of the other four nominees, i've seen exactly none of the performances. (so technically, for all i know, johnny depp's performance could be the best of the bunch. but given this field, i'm inclined to doubt it.) mr. ben kingsley has a fine reputation, and may be a good candidate to win based on that and the fact that, based on my understanding of the film, he plays an antagonist who's not actually a bad sort. sean penn is, or at any rate once was, a sort of darling of bet-you-didn't-know-he-had-it-in-him. but he's also sort of a troublemaker, isn't he? i frankly have a hard time imagining bill murray giving an oscar-worthy performance. probably my prejudice rather than his limitations. jude law: he'll win something someday, but i don't think this is his year.
prediction: sean penn
actress in a lead role
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider
Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give
Samantha Morton, In America
Charlize Theron, Monster
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams
i'm going completely on buzz, here, because i've seen none of these movies. i haven't even heard much about in america or 21 grams, actually. my feeling about the rest of the field is this: i'd love to see the girl from whale rider win, but she's like, what, fourteen? kids don't tend to win the lead-actor categories; even when they're in tough, meaty roles, they get nominated in supporting-actor because that's where they can win. diane keaton has some clout, but hrm, comedy. (she's hilarious! but that's not what brings in the accolades.) on the other hand, charlize theron has been steadily building up her cred for a while now, and everything i hear about monster suggests to me that this is the year she finally proves to the industry that she is not, in fact, ashley judd.
prediction: charlize theron
actor in a supporting role
Alec Baldwin, The Cooler
Benicio Del Toro, 21 Grams
Djimon Hounsou, In America
Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai
another toughie, partly because the category is so often unpredictable and partly because i haven't seen the movies. alec baldwin and tim robbins are adversely affected by being white guys. (in this category, yes they are.) alec baldwin is further hurt by being, well, alec baldwin. benicio del toro is adversely affected by having won before. (didn't he win for traffic?) i see it coming down to watanabe (winning the Graham Green Award For Being The Actual Ethnic Star Of A White-Man-Goes-Native Picture) and hounsou (possibly winning the award for Decent Performance By A Guy We Should Have Given An Award For Some Previous Performance In A Supporting Role, because damn, he should have won for gladiator -- for which he wasn't even nominated).
a large part of the cast of RotK could have been nominated here and held their heads high. i don't include orlando bloom in this group, nor dominic monaghan or john rhys-davis (a tougher call), nor even really sir ian mckellen, whose work was better in FotR (and obviously i don't include elijah wood, who would have to be [a] in the lead actor category and [b] puzzled by the decision to nominate him at all); but a strong case could be made for nominating (possibly) viggo mortenson, david wenham, or billy boyd, or (certainly) john noble, sean astin, or -- my personal what-do-you-mean-no-nod choices -- hugo weaving or andy serkis. the trouble is, in an ensemble cast that size, it's hard to single any one person out as being the best of the bunch. (i do think this is contributing to my feeling that serkis and weaving's performances were stronger than the rest, though, because they were so much closer to the Solo Act end of the spectrum.)
prediction: djimon hounsou
actress in a supporting role
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog
Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April
Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River
Holly Hunter, thirteen
Renee Zellweger, Cold Mountain.
i haven't even heard of pieces of april. this woman from house of sand and fog may have a good chance; see above re: ben kingsley, also supporting categories favoring the offbeat and "ethnic". mystic river is an odds-on favorite in any category that doesn't include return of the king, but marcia gay harden just won like a year ago. the academy loves holly hunter; but there's also, i fear, a better-than-average chance renee zellweger could get a lot of Sorry About Chicago votes. i think her two previous nominations have been complete embarrassments, but hey -- this could be different.
prediction: renee zellweger
best director
Fernando Meirelles, City of God
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
this is always the toughest category for me to predict, but i can say this: i confidently expect that sofia coppola will not win. i don't know anything about this city of god film, unfortunately; i think it's down to clint eastwood and the two guys named peter. and while eastwood and peter weir would ordinarily be strong contenders, everything i hear makes me think everybody's thinking this is the year peter jackson gets the pot -- like they haven't been patting him on the back before his work was done, but now that it is, oh yeah.
prediction: peter jackson
original score
Big Fish, Danny Elfman
Cold Mountain, Gabriel Yared
Finding Nemo, Thomas Newman
House of Sand and Fog, James Horner
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Howard Shore.
three previous winners, and john williams isn't nominated (though horner and shore can give him a run for his money, that's for sure). tough call. i like howard shore's music an awful lot, but that's not to say i feel comfortable predicting a winner in this category.
i can't actually predict winners for many of the other categories, and i can't even really heckle the nominees. so i'm done for now. it should be noted that i find all of this more silly and entertaining than anything else; i don't think the nominees even always reflect the best five whatever in a given year, still less is the winner usually the very best. and my predictions are based on what i think will, rather than what i think should, be the outcome. we'll see. :-)
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I thought the Best Actress nominees were all really random and totally wtf?
Dear God if you thought Renee Zellwegger's previous nominations were a joke...I cannot believe she won the Golden Globe...all she did was yell in a Southern hick accent the whole film, and show one or two moments of vulnerability.
My spare change, anyway. I enjoy analyses that are more than just "I think X will win because X was the best"...I just haven't taken the time to do my analysis yet...
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just in case, then, let's be sure not to have the oscar party at my house. :-)
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(Scarlet Johansson also does a good job.)
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Additional: I don't particularly want it to. Lost was a superior film in every way.
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I've only seen a couple more of these (LiT, half of Seabiscut on a plane...). Whale Rider was really good, but I'm not seeing her win--she's the youngest actress ever nominated in Leading Actress!
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best actor - I've heard so many raves for Sean Penn, but realistically I think Bill Murray will win, because he's 'playing against type.'
best actress - Charlize Theron. It's a lock. (now I've jinxed her and someone else will win, but there you go)
supporting actor - I truly hope Ken Watanabe wins. Of course, this is the only movie of the 5 noms I've seen, but I thought he was just *fantastic.*
supporting actress - Zellweger will probably win it. I don't have any strong feelings about this category, as I haven't seen any of the movies nominated. Maybe the woman from House of Sand and Fog.
director - Peter Jackson deserves it; let's all hope Sofia Coppola won't end up with it because everyone is ass-kissing and 'honoring one of their own.'
score - Big Fish. Cause I really liked it. :) Howard Shore will most likely win, though.
My thoughts anyway.