Oscars 2004

[Ugly Bastard]

The Academy Award nominations were released today. Here are some of the major categories:

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

Best Actor:

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

Best Actress:

Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider
Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give
Samantha Morton, In America
Charlize Theron, Monster
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams

Best Supporting Actor:

Alec Baldwin, The Cooler
Benicio Del Toro, 21 Grams
Djimon Hounsou (news), In America
Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai

Best Supporting Actress:

Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog
Patrica Clarkson, Pieces of April
Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River
Holly Hunter, Thirteen
Renée Zellweger, Cold Mountain

Best Director:

Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
Peter Jackson (news), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Fernando Meirelles, City of God
Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Best Original Screenplay:

The Barbarian Invasions, Denys Arcand (news)
Dirty Pretty Things, Steven Knight
Finding Nemo, Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson and David Reynolds
In America, Jim Sheridan & Naomi Sheridan & Kirsten Sheridan
Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola

Best Adapted Screenplay:

American Splendor, Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman
City of God, Braulio Mantovani
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson
Mystic River, Brian Helgeland Seabiscuit, Gary Ross

Best Animated Feature:

Brother Bear
Finding Nemo
The Triplets of Belleville

Best Foreign-Language Film:

The Barbarian Invasions, Canada
Evil, Sweden
The Twilight Samurai, Japan
Twin Sisters, The Netherlands
Zelary, Czech Republic

_____________

A few things that surprised me:

- Tom Cruise, who I thought would win Best Actor for The Last Samuri, wasn't even nominated for the award
- Russel Crowe is yet again in a movie that gets nominated for Best Picture, yet, for once, he is nowhere to be found on the Best Actor list
- Nicole Kidman, who seemingly is at least nominated every year for Best Actress, fails to get nominated for her "amazing" role in Cold Mountain
- Seabiscuit and Master and Commander both get nominated for Best Picture. I have seen both of these movies, and thought they were quite good, they just didn't strike me as the type of films that get nominated for Best Picture

Should be pretty interesting to see who wins what. I've got my money on Lord of the Rings finally winning a Best Picture. Not so much because this one was better than the other two, but more because the competition is pretty lax this year. It wasn't the best year for movies.

Finally, I hope to high-Christ that Johnny Depp wins Best Actor for Pirates of the Caribbean. That is one of the most amazing roles I have ever seen. It's cool that he got nominated at the very least, something I wasn't too sure would happen due to the playful nature of the movie.

-Ugly Bastard