Tuesday, 13 February 2001

UPDATE - 2/13/2001 - 6:30 a.m.

AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Ahhh… virtually no surprise in sight. My one serious error was not mentioning Julie Walters as a Best Supporting Actress possible, which was just dumb. I knew better. The other big surprise for everyone was that in the end, O Brother, Where Art Thou? will go down in history as an Adapted Screenplay… you know, from The Odyssey.

The biggest loser in today's nominations was Fox, both 20^th Century and Searchlight. Cast Away may be laughing all the way to the bank, but a Tom Hanks nomination and a Sound nod can't be a thrill and Quills' three nominations, for Geoffrey Rush, Art Direction and Costume Design has got to be downright disheartening.

The big winner, yet again, is Tony Angellotti, who brought home a total of 18 Oscar nominations by my count, pushing for Erin Brockovich, Chocolat, Billy Elliot, Malena, Vatel and on a side bet, Rod Lurie's dream nomination (which came true) for Jeff Bridges. Also raising her profile as an Oscar consultant was Nancy Willen, who was behind the scenes on Gladiator for DreamWorks.

So, the answer is, you can still buy an Oscar nomination. Lots of them even! Although there seemed to be a drop-off in Miramax's belief in Chocolat as a Best Picture nominee, the campaign paid off in a big way. DreamWorks was willing to bet the farm (read; millions of dollars more than anyone else) on Gladiator and won with a nominee-leading 12 nominations.

Am I ready to apologize to Sony Classics for bitching and moaning about their release schedule for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? No, of course not. I could not be more thrilled that CT/HD made its move to the top. What that means is that the studio did what they needed to do to push the picture as a phenomena. What it also means is that my drive to push the screen count over the often-stated "no more than 800 screen" count was right all the time. The picture will push to over 1500 screens this weekend. Great. Congratulations to everyone over at Sony Classics, Block-Korenbrot and Magic Lantern. It's too bad you didn't have the face time with you talent to get some acting nods, but with three leads with very busy schedules and one who speaks no English, you were, as Ginger Rogers said, doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards.

What else to cover before I go back to bed? Hmmm… The ever absurd Inside Line Oscar thing was, in the end, about as accurate as everyone else in predicting nominations. The only categories that they hit dead on were Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, hitting the biggest surprise nod, to Jeff Bridges in The Contender. Joel Siegal of ABC apparently hit 27 of 30 in the Big Six categories. (Of course, he's still spinning the idea that these nominations come out of a natural process, just to prove that while these nominations may have been predictable, so is his disconnection from the reality of the movie business.) In four of the top eight categories, Inside's line was off by more than a slot. In the case of Stephen Daldry's Best Director nod, they had him in the 10 spot. My guess is that by next year, Inside will have to decide whether a mention by Richard Roeper is worth the embarrassment of being so off the mark, much as the Wall Street Journal has to decide whether to embarrass itself again this year by polling Oscar voters. I hope both outlets will have the taste to pass.

My biggest errors came in the Best Supporting Actress group and in supporting Cast Away too strongly. The only "locks" not to lock in were Cast Away as Best Picture and Robert Zemeckis as Best Director. Oh well. My biggest disappointments this year are, ironically, in the Best Supporting Actress category, where I think that Catherine Zeta-Jones' performance in Traffic and Ziyi Zhang's in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon deserved to be recognized.

And so, the parade to Oscar begins…

BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem - Before Night Falls
Russell Crowe - Gladiator
Tom Hanks – Cast Away
Ed Harris - Pollock
Geoffrey Rush – Quills

Miss
Sean Connery – Finding Forrester

BEST ACTRESS
Joan Allen – The Contender
Juliette Binoche - Chocolat
Ellen Burstyn – Requiem For A Dream
Laura Linney – You Can Count On Me
Julia Roberts – Erin Brockovich

Miss
Cate Blanchett – The Gift

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jeff Bridges – The Contender
Albert Finney – Erin Brockovich
Willem Dafoe – Shadow of the Vampire
Benecio Del Toro – Traffic
Joaquin Phoenix – Gladiator/Quills

Miss
Tobey Maquire – Wonder Boys

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Judi Dench - Chocolat
Marcia Gay Harden - Pollock
Kate Hudson – Almost Famous
Frances McDormand – Almost Famous
Julie Walters – Billy Elliot

Misses
Catherine Zeta-Jones - Traffic
Kate Winslet - Quills
Ziyi Zhang – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Almost Famous
Original Screenplay by Cameron Crowe

Billy Elliot
Original Screenplay by Lee Hall

Erin Brockovich
Original Screenplay by Susannah Grant

Gladiator
Story by David Franzoni
Screenplay by David Franzoni and John Logan and William Nicholson

You Can Count On Me
Original Screenplay by Ken Lonergan

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Chocolat
Screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs
From the novel by Joanne Harris

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Screenplay by Wang Hui-Ling, James Schamus and Tsai Kuo Jun

O Brother, Where Art Thou
Original Screenplay by Joel & Ethan Coen

Traffic
Screenplay by Stephen Gaghan
Adapted from the BBC TV series Traffik

Wonder Boys
Screenplay by Steven Kloves
From the novel by Michael Chabon

BEST DIRECTOR
Stephen Daldry – Billy Elliot
Ang Lee - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ridley Scott – Gladiator
Steven Soderbergh– Erin Brockovich
Steven Soderbergh – Traffic

Misses
Phillip Kaufman – Quills
Robert Zemeckis – Cast Away

BEST PICTURE
Chocolat
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Erin Brockovich
Gladiator
Traffic

Miss
Cast Away

E ME: The column has been updated after the nominations were announced. Your first chance to tell me I was wrong!!!!

(For the pre-announcement Hot Button click here)