The Oscar nominations were recently released. They can be found here.
Excuse the ramblings of my first impression.
Confirms what many already suspected, Chicago is the front runner. Best Actor race should be interesting because Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis are the favorites but the usually bland Nicholas Cage turned in an excellent performance in Adaptation. Speaking of Adaptation, I knew it belonged in Adapted Screenplay but it could easily fit into Original Screenplay. Interesting, LOTR: The Two Towers was nominated for Best Picture but not Director. Lastly, if Spirited Away doesn’t win best Animated Picture, I’ll stop caring about the Acadamey Awards altogether.
Even by the standards of the Oscars, this is not a good nomination list.
“Gangs of New York” was a dreadful choice for Best Picture, probably the worst nominee in years.
I was holding out some hope Dennis Quaid would be nominated for “The Rookie,” a terribly overlooked performance, but I guess that had to give Jack Nicholson another trip to the front row.
Paul Newman for “Road to Perdition”? Well, that settles the Andy Serkis question.
I don’t understand the technical nominations at all.
If “Adaptation” wins for Best Screenplay, I’ll shoot someone. It should be against the rules to nominate a screenplay about a screenwriter, especially when the main character’s named after the screenwriter. Navel-gazing is too pathetic to be rewarded.
Wasn’t “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” based on a play?
Way to go “Chicago.” This musical theatre devotee is doing her Happy Dance! Though I wish they’d let Bibi star in it. I saw her on Broadway and she is a goddess.
IIRC, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” was based on the author’s stand up comedy routine.
My Oscar comment: Way to go to the Academy for John C. Reilly’s nomination, though it could have been for any of the three movies (“Chicago”, “The Hours” and “The Good Girl”) that he was brilliant in this year.
Lack of original costumes? Aren’t all the main characters’ costumes just the same things they were wearing in Fellowship? I know there were a few new characters introduced, but enough to merit an Oscar?
As opposed to The Gangs of New York where, odds are, the cosutme “designer” went to a clothes rental place and pulled a slew of period peices off the rack.
Movies that actually make new costumes (often sifi & fantasy) tend to get the shaft by the nomination committee.
When was the last time a person was nominated in both the actor/actress and supporting actor/actress categories? Has anyone ever one both in the same year?
I didn’t see many of the nominated movies yet, but I did see Catch Me if You Can and I’m glad Christopher Walken was nominated. He was one of the best things in the movie. If he wins, who wants to bet he starts his acceptance speech with “Two mice fell into a bucket of cream…”?
13 Chicago
10 Gangs of New York
9 The Hours
7 The Pianist
6 Frida, LOTR:TTT, Road to Perdition
4 Adaptation, Far from Heaven
2 About Schmidt, Catch Me If You Can, Spider-Man, Talk to Her
Best Nominations: About a Boy (Adapted Screenplay)
“Lose Yourself” (Eminem) from 8 Mile (Best Song) Y Tu Mama Tambien and Talk to Her getting Screenplay nods, with the latter also taking Director
Worst: Far from Heaven losing Art Direction and Costume Design to Perdition and Hours respectively.
Ed Harris & Stephen Daldry The Time Machine for Make-up over, sheesh, Chicago, LOTR:TTT, Gangs you name it.
I think it was Emma Thompson & Holly Hunter, both in 1993. Hunter won lead, Thompson won neither (though she won lead the year before)
If you’ve seen Gangs, you’d know that the costumes are very different from “off-the-rack” period work. There’s almost this bizarre theatricality to the gangs wardrobe that still stays completely true to the feeling of the era. Not to mention that you are dealing with all sorts of classes & ethnicities as well. Gangs may not have deserved several of its nominations, but it definitely deserved it in this category over the largely (though not completely) redundant work in LOTR.
Actually, she registered the screenplay with the Writer’s guild before she incorporated some of it into her stage act. Hence, “Original”.
Quaid wuz robbed! John C. Reilly was fine but Dennis Quaid could have been nominated for The Rookie as Best Actor or Far From Heaven as Best Supporting Actor.
That’s often true of the costumes for the background characters. But in a film with a decent-sized budget, the costumes of the main characters are almost always actually designed and fabricated by the costume designer and his/her department. I can almost guarantee you this was the case for Gangs of New York.
Paul Newman was nominated because he’s Paul Newman. He’s a great actor, but the role could have been filled by any old man capable of an Irish accent.
Why is GANGS OF NEW YORK nominated for Best Original Screenplay when it’s based on a 70 year old book?
Please, God, please… don’t let Michael Moore win… anybody but him… please Lawd please… his Oscar speech will make you long for the ration and restraint of Richard Gere, and you just know he’ll wear sneakers and a ballcap with his tux to make some point.
Day-Lewis, hands down, of course. Without him and Jim Broadbent that movie wouldn’t have been worth the price of admission if it included a handjob.
I’d vote for Latifah in a second if she wasn’t up against CZJ, who should have been competing with Renee Zelwegger instead. She didn’t have as much screen time, but she’s at least as important to the movie and she’s mesmerizing when she’s on screen.
I really hope Peter Hedges gets the award for ABOUT A BOY- he managed to be witty without being smug and warm without being syrupy.
Odd that Howard Shore (score) and Andrew Lesnie (cinematography) won for FOTR last year, but weren’t nominated this year in the same categories, for basically a continuation of the same film.
Is some of the work in LOTR:TTT disqualified because it was seen before in FOTR? For instance, is Aragorn’s or Gimli’s costume ineligible for consideration in Costume Design because it’s not original to TTT?
Or, if some of Howard Shore’s music for TTT reprises themes heard in FOTR, does that make it ineligible?