Michael Dwyer picks his Oscar-bound contenders
BEST PICTURE
Will one ring rule them all? Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, the first film in his $300 million trilogy based on The Lord of the Rings (henceforth LOTR for brevity), leads the field with 13 nominations. Only All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997), each with 14, have received more nominations in Oscars history. Tied with eight nominations each are A Beautiful Mind and Baz Luhrmann's exuberant musical, Moulin Rouge, although in a major upset, Luhrmann failed to be nominated as best director. All three are on the shortlist for best picture, along with Robert Altman's delightfully played social satire, Gosford Park, and the powerful low-budget family drama, In the Bedroom, the first film directed by actor Todd Field. The movie with the most nominations generally takes best picture, but the Oscars electorate are not known for rewarding fantasy epics - in 1977, Star Wars took seven Oscars, but all in technical categories, while Annie Hall walked off with the Oscars for best picture, director and actress. And the voters may well be suffering from battle fatigue after the sustained public spat between LOTR and A Beautiful Mind.
I suspect Moulin Rouge will slip through and pip both of them for the Oscar.
BEST DIRECTOR
The 77-year-old Altman (Gosford Park) is joined on the shortlist by former child-actor Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), Peter Jackson (LOTR), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive) and Ridley Scott (Black Hawk Down). None of them has won this award in the past. Lynch hasn't a hope, while Scott is also unlikely to win. Altman, on his fifth nomination, has sentiment, age and experience on his side, but the race is down to Howard and Jackson. Given that there will be other opportunities to honour Jackson over the next two years, when the second and third parts of LOTR are released, it's Howard to win.
BEST ACTOR
The shortlist rounds up all the usual suspects to whom Oscars voters appear to be susceptible - Crowe as a schizophrenic mathematician in A Beautiful Mind, Will Smith as a boxer (Muhammad Ali in Ali) who contracts Parkinson's Disease, Sean Penn as a mentally disabled man in I Am Sam, and the Yorkshire actor, Tom Wilkinson, as a bereaved father in In the Bedroom. The loose cannon is the wholly amoral detective played with swaggering relish by Denzel Washington in Training Day. Only two men have won best actor on consecutive years, Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks, and Crowe, who won last year for Gladiator, does not attract any of the affection accorded those actors in Hollywood.
I put a small wager on Washington to win long before the Crowe fuss blew up, and I remain convinced that he will win.
BEST ACTRESS
The outsiders are Judi Dench, on her fourth nomination in five years for Iris and first-time nominee Renee Zellweger for Bridget Jones's Diary. That leaves a three-way duel between two other first-time nominees - Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge) and Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) - and Sissy Spacek for In the Bedroom. Voters wanting to score a point against Kidman's ex-husband, Tom Cruise, may vote for Kidman, who also will benefit from acclaim for The Others. A former model, Berry has been building up a head of steam for her fine performance in Monster's Ball, which doesn't open here until mid-June. And while Spacek gives the outstanding performance of the five, it may be to her disadvantage that she won the best actress Oscar in the past, for Coal Miner's Daughter in 1980. This is exceedingly tough to call, but I'll go for Spacek.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Two of the Gosford Park cast are on the shortlist - Maggie Smith, who has two Oscars, and Helen Mirren, along with another former winner, Marisa Tomei (In the Bedroom), Kate Winslet (Iris) and Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind). Connelly's role is substantial enough for her to be in the best actress category, and Universal astutely positioned her here.
If there is any sure thing at this year's Oscars, it is that Connelly will win.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Two former Oscar winners are back in contention - Jon Voight impersonating sports broadcaster Howard Cosell in Ali and Ben Kingsley as a psychopathic criminal in Sexy Beast. Their rivals are Ethan Hawke for Training Day, Jim Broadbent for Iris, and the only LOTR acting nominee, Ian McKellen, who should have won for Gods and Monsters in 1998 and could be the beneficiary of a career achievement award.
This is a tight race, and Kingsley could well cause an upset, but I believe that the first standing ovation of the evening will come early on when McKellen is declared the winner.
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
As ever, anything could happen here, where long shots from Argentina (Son of the Bride), Norway (Elling) and India (Lagaan) join the front-runners, Amelie, the French hit which has five Oscar nominations in all but only stands to win here, and
the Bosnian anti-war satire, No Man's Land, which scored a Golden Globe victory over Amelie in January.
However, I expect Amelie will charm the voters and go the distance.
OTHER CATEGORIES
The award for best original screenplay is down to the British nominees, brothers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan for Memento, and Julian Fellowes for Gosford Park, and Memento should scrape through. Both LOTR and A Beautiful Mind are out front for best adapted screenplay, with the latter the hot favourite, but I will go with outsiders Todd Field and Rob Festinger for In the Bedroom.
There are just three nominees shotlisted for best animated feature - Monsters, Inc., Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and the runaway favourite, Shrek, but I will risk my prediction on Monsters, Inc.
Composer John Williams, who now has received
41 Oscar nominations, takes two of the five places
for best original score - for A.I. and Harry Potter - but Howard Shore's majestic score for LOTR seems unbeatable.
I expect LOTR to add the awards for visual effects and make-up, bringing its tally to five, and Moulin Rouge to collect cinematography, film editing, art direction and costume design, bringing its haul to
five. That leaves Black Hawk Down to take best
sound and Pearl Harbor to win best sound editing.
I have seen none of the nominees for live action short, documentary short and documentary feature, but the highly topical Promises, dealing with children in Israel and Palestine, looks like the sure winner of documentary feature.