Let’s play Guess the Oscars!
THE F&SN CRITIC PREDICTS THE 2002 NOMINEES FOR ACADEMY AWARDS…
Oscar nominations come out tomorrow. Let’s forget about whether they have any intrinsic value, or if they are, in the words of Woody Allen, “pointless.” We can talk about that some other day. Let’s just assume we’re all betting men, here for the sport, and see how well my Magic Eight Ball is working today.
EXPECT THESE MOVIES TO MAKE BIG SPLASHES…
My Magic Eight Ball tells me “Gangs of New York” will get nominations across the board for the big prizes: picture, director, acting, writing, and technical credits, getting between eight and eleven. Aside from it, Golden Globe-winner “Chicago” will probably be the only film nominated for picture, director, acting, writing, and serious visuals. Expect it also to land between six and ten nominations, and don’t be surprised if it wins.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” will probably get almost as many, with more technical and visual stuff, and music, but nothing for writing or acting. “The Two Towers” comes to the awards with three strikes against it: it’s a fantasy, it’s a sequel, and it’s not all that deep. Hopefully the Academy has had its fill of no-brainers like “Titanic” and “Gladiator.” “The Two Towers” is a technical and financial success, with mostly positive critical acclaim, but it’s silly to think a fantasy could pick up the big prize; the only films to ever incorporate the supernatural and still win Best Picture were “Hamlet” (1945), which featured the ghost of Hamlet’s father, and “Ben-Hur” (1959), with the Crucifixion. “Star Wars,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “A Clockwork Orange” were all losers. And the only sequel to ever, ever, EVER win Best Picture was the best sequel of them all, “The Godfather Part II,” and if anyone tells you “The Two Towers” is on par with The Offer You Can’t Refuse, then you can slap him a few times for me.
With performances by past winners Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Nicholas Cage, and Kathy Bates, and past nominees Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman, “The Hours,” “Adaptation,” and “About Schmidt” will come close to monopolizing the acting nominations. They will also be nominated for some combination of best picture and best director, but don’t expect them to win, and they’ll do well with the snooty awards like writing and film editing. Expect them to get anywhere between four and nine nominations each, with “Adaptation” making the smallest splash. Their art-house cousin, “Far From Heaven,” which STILL has not been seen in wide-release, might only pick some nominations for acting and writing.
Like “The Two Towers,” “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones” will be nominated for some technical awards but will be rightly shut out in the acting and writing categories. “Minority Report” deserves all the technical nominations it can get. It will be sadly shunned for writing, directing, and acting, and its technical virtues will probably be eclipsed by those of “Star Wars” and “The Two Towers.”
The Oscars have a longer memory and more proletarian tastes than the Golden Globes, which means that the lightweight audience favorite “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” might squeeze into a few places. Latecomers “The 25th Hour,” “The Pianist,” “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” and “Nicholas Nickleby” will also be lucky to grab odds and ends in the acting, writing, and, in “Nickleby’s” case, costume or art design categories, but don’t expect them to win much. “Frida” will almost certainly get Salma Hayek nominated, but films from earlier in the year, like “Auto-Focus,” “Changing Lanes,” “13 Conversations About One Thing,” “One-Hour Photo,” “Signs,” and “Insomnia” will be mostly forgotten, and lucky to grab whatever paltry notice they can get.