Fandango

No mention of Naomi Watts in 21 Grams? She should be nominated at the very least.

Ignite

If Charlize Theron loses to Diane Keaton for best actress, I might turn violent.

IIG

Really. I don't go into Queer As Folk threads to say I hate Queer As Folk. If you don't care, skip the thread and find something more suited to your interests...

Anyway, after seeing "The House of Sand & Fog" last night, I think Kingsley should certainly be the frontrunner for Best Actor. In a perfect world, Edward Zwick should be nominated for Best Director for "The Last Samurai", but maybe that's just me...

Daytripper

Have you actually seen both films? I admitted I haven't seen "Monster" yet. It hasn't opened in my city. But I do plan on seeing it. And I'll reserve my final choice until I see everything. But Keaton's work in "SGG" is Oscar worthy. And even if Theron's work turns out to be better (IMO), she is young and that might work against her. The Academy will probably have the "she'll have other opportunities to win" attitude.

Daytripper

Great list Tarnower! However, I wouldn't count Charlotte Rampling out for "Swimming Pool" just yet. True, it did come out a long time ago. And sadly, that also works against most films and performances. But at the time, it's all you heard. How great she was and to expect a nomination for sure.

Ignite

Yes, I've seen both. Although I did like Diane Keaton the two performances were simply incomparable.

PixyJunket

Nemo for Best Animated.

Tarnower

Yeah, "Finding Nemo" should have no problem winning Best Animated Feature. Only competition may come from "The Triplets of Bellville."

PixyJunket

Now if they could go back and give the first award to Monsters Inc.. or anything that's not Shrek.

badger1997

Hmmm...only prediction I have is Academy will not give many to ROTK because it's simply the least interesting and entertaining of the three movies. I find it interesting that many of the people who say it should win the award in recognition of all three films are likely some of the same people who cry foul when they give supposed "make-up" Oscars to performers.

I haven't gotten the chance to see Cold Mountain yet but given past history that obviously stands a good chance of winning with the Academy, but from just movies I have seen so far this year, 21 Grams, Mystic River, Lost in Translation, The Last Samurai and several more were all better films this year than ROTK in my opinion. I hope the lack of awards for the LOTR movies continues this year and I am willing to bet that it will.

Tarnower

Good point.

Although I have to respectfully disagree with you that ROTK is the least entertaining of the three LOTR films. I found it to be the best and most emotionally satisfying of the trilogy.

I have a feeling that a good deal of the Academy voters will have a difficult time in awarding this film any major Oscars since it is not a "stand alone" picture, but instead part of a greater whole. If they didn't give Best Picture to either of the first two films, I just don't see them giving it to the third of a trilogy, regardless the quality of the work.

I would think the right thing to do would be to award a Special Achievement Oscar to Peter Jackson and the producers of all three LOTR films in recognition to their contribution to the art of filmmaking with this classic landmark achievement.

I can see "Cold Mountain" attaining the same hated status that "Dances With Wolves" has. The latter beat out "Goodfellas" for Best Picture and hasn't stopped taking heat for it. "Cold Mountain," upon winning Best Picture, will become reviled and discriminated against because it will be the film that beat "LOTR: ROTK" for the Best Picture Oscar. And many that diss it will probably not even bother to see it.

Jan H

I'm not sure Cold Mountain deserves front-runner status. It has gotten mixed reviews, hasn't won any critics awards, and hasn't appeared on too many 10-best lists. I haven't seen the film yet, but from what I've been hearing, it isn't all that special, Golden Globes aside. On the other hand, the Academy loves money, particularly when it coincides with cinematic achievement. ROTK should be considered the heavy favorite, and deservedly so. The only film that I see taking BP other than 'King' is Mystic River. And I think Sean Penn is an absolute certainty to win Best Actor this year. We shall see...

Grimfarrow

My predictions are only slightly different from Tarnower's:

BEST PICTURE:
1. "Cold Mountain"
2. "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
3. "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"
4. "Mystic River"
5. "Seabiscuit"
Alternate: "Lost in Translation"

Predicted Winner: "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
(Cold Mountain is supposedly quite Terrence Malick-esque - not the type that The Academy will fall all over for).

BEST ACTOR:
1. Johnny Depp ("Pirates of the Caribbean")
2. Ben Kingsley ("House of Sand and Fog")
3. Bill Murray ("Lost in Translation")
4. Russell Crowe ("Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World")
5. Sean Penn ("Mystic River")
Alternate: Jude Law ("Cold Mountain")

Predicted Winner: Sean Penn ("Mystic River")
(problem is, it's Bill Murray's to lose - but Bill has not been doing ANY publicity, and is effectively avoiding the limelight. Sorry, but all that he's doing is give Sean the award).

BEST ACTRESS;
1. Jennifer Connelly ("The House of Sand & Fog")
2. Diane Keaton ("Something's Gotta Give")
3. Nicole Kidman ("Cold Mountain")
4. Helen Mirren ("Calendar Girls")
5. Charlize Theron ("Monster")
Alternate: Naomi Watts ("21 Grams")

Predicted Winner: Charlize Theron ("Monster")
(Boys Don't Cry + Hollywood Glamour girl = Oscar)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR;
1. Alec Baldwin ("The Cooler")
2. Albert Finney ("Big Fish")
3. Paul Bettany ("Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World")
4. Tim Robbins ("Mystic River")
5. Chris Cooper ("Seabiscuit")
Alternate: Sean Astin ("The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"), Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai")

Predicted Winner: Tim Robbins ("Mystic River")
(Big Fish has already lost its Oscar momentum)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS;
1. Patricia Clarkson ("Pieces of April")
2. Marcia Gay Harden ("Mystic River")
3. Holly Hunter ("Thirteen")
4. Scarlett Johansson ("Lost in Translation")
5. Renee Zellweger ("Cold Mountain")
Alternate: Mario Bello ("The Cooler"), Shoreh Aghdashloo ("House of Sand and Fog")

Predicted Winner: Renee Zellweger ("Cold Mountain")

BEST DIRECTOR:
1. Anthony Minghella ("Cold Mountain")
2. Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King")
3. Sofia Coppola ("Lost in Translation")
4. Peter Weir ("Master and Commander: The Far Side of the
World")
5. Clint Eastwood ("Mystic River')

Predicted Winner: Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings: The
Return of the King")

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:
1. Finding Nemo
2. The Triplets of Belleville
3. Millennium Actress
Alternate: Tokyo Godfather

Predicted Winner: Finding Nemo

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
1. Goodbye Lenin! (Germany)
2. Osama (Afghanistan)
3. The Barbarian Invasion (Canada)
4. Bon Voyage (France)
5. The Twilight Samurai (Japan)
Alternate: Twin Sisters (Netherlands), Valentin (Argentina), I'm Not Scared (Italy), The Story of the Weeping Camel (Mongolia)

Winner: Goodbye Lenin! (Germany)
(vastly overrated, but that's why it will win)

Daytripper

Huh!? I think you need to brush up on your "Cold Mountain" homework. Because it's receiving mostly good reviews (check out rottentomatoes.com) and it *is* on quite a few 10 best lists (including Time, Rolling Stone, National Board of Review, Los Angeles Times, People, etc).

Grimfarrow

Actually, Jan H is right. Take a look at this:

http://www.geninn.net/critics/2003/

They only count the lists from actual critics, and the source of the lists are on the right-hand column.

Based upon the Critics List, Cold Mountain wouldn't even be in the *top ten* of the year! It has appared on 32 lists only, which ties it to "The Station Agent". This compared to ROTK's 82 lists, and a whopping 115 lists for Lost in Translation.

Incidentally, ROTK is #1 on 25 of the lists, giving it the most-cited #1 by critics.

Jan H

Notice my use of the phrase 'too many'? Hmm, yes, Rotten Tomatoes, always a good barometer of Academy preferences. How silly of me. I don't really remember, but ROTK was on each of those lists, as well, and in most cases higher up on the list than Cold Mountain was (I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong). The real telling point here is that Return of the King won the New York Film Critics Award and Mystic River won The National Board of Review. Up next is the LA Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics, and if Cold Mountain wins neither of those, it has exactly ZERO chance of winning the Best Picture Oscar. And as for those mixed reviews I was hinting at? Check out www.mrqe.com and type in Cold Mountain.

Tarnower

And when it comes to Hollywood giving out Oscars, most of that stuff won't even come into play. Remember "Braveheart"? That received very mixed critical reception, and I don't remember that receiving any critic's prizes at year end. But it goes on to win Best Picture. Likewise with "Gladiator," although slightly better reviews than "Braveheart."

"Cold Mountain" is the type of historical epic/romance/adventure that Hollywood gives the Best Picture Oscar to. It contains all the elements that makes Hollywood feel good about itself for having it represent them for future generations. It is a film that is tailor-made to win Oscars.

Grimfarrow

And this is exactly why it won't win. Miramax won last year, and Minghella's film already won Best Picture and Best Director before. Nicole Kidman won just last year. Great pedigree, but all *way* too recent for the Academy to be so eager to hand them all another award so soon.

Tarnower

And I hope you're right. I personally think "LOTR: ROTK" not only deserves Best Picture, but actually is the best film of 2003. I'm just referring to the mind-set of the Academy. If you look thoughout Oscar history, many directors and actors have won Oscars with very few years time passing. Recently, Tom Hanks winning Best Actor two years in a row. Milos Forman winning Best Director in '75 for "Cuckoo's Nest" and then again nine years later for '84's "Amadeus." That's just to name a couple recent examples. There are many throughout Academy history. Another is Jodie Foster winning Best Actress in '88 for "The Accused" and then three years later for '91's "Silence of the Lambs."

Anthony Mingella won Best Director in 1996 for "The English Patient." Now he's nominated seven years later for "Cold Mountain." I don't think it's that unreasonable to think the Academy wouldn't want to give him another Oscar because he "just" won. Although probably not a good example, because I just can't imagine Peter Jackson being passed over for ROTK. I'll be very surprised if ROTK gets Best Picture over "Cold Mountain," but I really expect the Academy to give Jackson the directing award. In recent Oscar history the winners of Best Picture and Best Director have not been lining up, so it's not much of a stretch to think it will happen again this year.

Daytripper

Who the hell said anything about rottentomatoes being a barometer for Academy preferences? You said "Cold Mountain" was getting mixed reviews. Which is why I pointed you to rottentomatoes. It's currently at 76%. I never heard of www.mrqe.com before now. But according to that site, it still shows that "Cold Mountain" received more above average reviews than negative (38 to 14 to be exact). And I'm basing this on the reviews with actual grades next to it.

Jan H

What is it about ROTK that makes it 'ineligible' for an Academy win? The fact that it isn't 'historical'? (Not that Braveheart or Gladiator were!) This argument is sooo tired. They gave Chicago the award last year because they hadn't given one to a musical for 34 years. Why would they give it to yet another Harvey Weinstein-fueled star vehicle 'historical epic' that (by many accounts) gets 'out-epiced' by a far-superior film. Like I said before, I haven't seen Cold Mountain, but the more I think about it, and read film criticism, the more I don't want to.

DVDealer

The way you state it, any series of movies that are made "as a series" of movies will never win Best Picture. Peter Jackson has defined a new way for the film industry to tackle subject matter that previously could only be dealt with on television with miniseries the way they shot the Lord of the Rings series of movies. If you make it impossible for such a film to win an Oscar with this mentality, other studios won't do this sort of ambitious filmmaking like New Line did again, which would be a shame.

The way it was shot, I can understand the hesitancy of awarding best picture to the first two LOTR movies, since all three are needed to make a judgement on the overall quality of the films. If they'd given LOTR: FOTR the Best Picture award and the subsequent films were bombs like the Matrix sequels were, then the academy would feel like they slapped themselves in the face... But now that the series is complete and the final chapter is arguably the best "Part III" movie made in the history of film with the first two films also being top quality and being "avoided" for Oscars earlier, it seems more likely they will award ROTK the award this year than the last two. What worked against FOTR and TTT earlier will work in favor of ROTK this year.

One award I'd like to think they get right this year is Adapted Screenplay. LOTR finally should get it there. I thought it a crime earlier when FOTR lost this to "A Beautiful Mind" where the overly creative licensed script was arguably one of its weaker points if it had any. Also that ROTK wasn't even nominated for Golden Globes in this category in my mind should make some say this is the place for Jackson's team to be finally recognized for doing one of the greatest adaptions of a previous literary work to film of all time.

I wonder if some folks today would have not voted for Annie Hall over it's more popular competitor that everyone remembers today instead of it, arguably because they felt that "Annie Hall" was more of an "academy" type film than the film it beat out was. And for those of you who don't know the other film I'm talking about, you've proven my point.

Grimfarrow

No, Adapted Screenplay should go to Mystic River, hands-down. ROTK started to annoy me with the recycling of dialogue from the last two (yes, we know that the army is built to destroy the world of men - you told me that in the last film!). Plus, Annie Hall STILL is a much better film than that other one - pop culture be damned.

Jan H - I think that you should give Cold Mountain a chance. I haven't see it yet, but I *do* expect to like it much, much more than "The English Patient". Why? Because many reviews out now compare it more to "The Thin Red Line" and "In the Mood for Love" (!) than Mighella's own past films. And I love Malick and Wong. However, if the film *is* like Malick's or Wong's, then guaranteed, it will not win Best Picture.

Jan H

Interesting. I liked 'The English Patient' and 'The Thin Red Line' a great deal. If it's as good as those films I'll be pleasantly surprised. I did not, however, appreciate 'In the Mood for Love'. Viewing it was akin to watching my scabs heal (and took about as long). However, if it even approaches the artistry of any of these 3 films, I will definitely see it.

And yes, DVDealer, I am fully aware that Annie Hall was the deserved winner over Star Wars (10-yr old fanboy though I was at the time), though how Ordinary People was better than The Empire Strikes Back or Raging Bull, I'll never understand.

Tarnower

I didn't think "Cold Mountain" was like "The Thin Red Line" at all. It's much more accessible and has a much cleaner, simpler story line.

And I completely agree that "Annie Hall" was a more deserving winner than "Star Wars." IMHO "Annie Hall" is the most sophisticated and intellectually challenging film the Academy has ever awarded it's Best Picture Oscar to. And, next to "All About Eve," the finest Screenplay ever written.

Speaking of Best Picture Oscar winners that seem puzzling choices?! How about "Shakespeare in Love" getting it over "Saving Private Ryan"?! I think it's the biggest upset since the 1950s when "An American in Paris" foolishly beat out "A Streetcar Named Desire."