March 1st, 2004 THE DUMBEST MAN AT HUDSUCKER INDUSTRIES WINS AN OSCAR. Results of the 2003 Academy Awards prompt important question:  Is Tim Robbins the tallest person to ever win an Oscar? So I guess the complexities of the human spirit really don’t matter in the face of blinding technical prowess.  Or at least that’s what can be gleaned from “The Lord of the Rings:  The Return of the King’s” clean sweep of the 2003 Oscars.  All the grown-up stories about loss and hope and ambivalence and joy were swept aside by the titanic toddler and its safe, unambiguous tale of absolute good vs. absolute, faceless evil.  Perhaps the evening’s greatest travesty was not “Lord of the Rings” winning Best Picture, or Best Film Editing (the whole trilogy is so jumpy!), or even Best Director, because director Peter Jackson did bust his guts arranging his armies of techies and extras—although everyone with more brain cells than teeth generally agrees he should have spent a little more of that time fleshing out his characters.  The biggest insult was Jackson’s win for Best Adapted Screenplay.  Did the voters even see “City of God” or “Mystic River?”  I won’t even begin…never mind.  And I won’t even get into how Annie Lennox’s blah, do-nothing ditty beat out “Belleville Rendez-vous.” The evening’s best award, though, is also in a writing category and goes without question to Sofia Coppola’s brilliant original screenplay for “Lost in Translation.”  Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations.  What an excellent story, perhaps the best picture of the year, and one that I look forward to affecting me for years to come, long after something bigger, louder, and dumber than “LOTR” has captured the popular imagination.
						The Barbarian Invasions Foreign Language Film Chernobyl Heart Documentary Short Cold Mountain Supporting Actress – Renee Zellweger Harvie Krumpet Animated Short Finding Nemo Best Animated Feature The Fog of War:  Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara Best Documentary Feature Lost in Translation Original Screenplay Monster Actress – Charlize Theron Two Soldiers Live-Action Short
	The Lord of the Rings:  The Return of the King – 11 awards Best Picture Best Director Adapted Screenplay Film Editing Art Direction Costume Design Visual Effects Makeup Original Score Original Song Sound Master & Commander:  The Far Side of the World – 2 awards Cinematography Sound Effects Editing Mystic River – 2 awards Actor – Sean Penn Supporting Actor – Tim Robbins
		For a complete list of nominees, as well as the predictions made by my wife and me, click here.  We both predicted things amazingly well.
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