THE 75TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS REVISITED
by Noel Wood

The Oscars are like my Super Bowl.

I’m not that big of a sports fan in general, and I really don’t care much about football. Sure, I go to the Super Bowl parties every year, but I’m mainly just there for the booze and the snacks and whatnot. Most people say they watch for the commercials, but I really don’t even care about those. Anything worth a damn will usually get played to death in the next few months anyway (see: The stupid Osbournes/Osmonds Pepsi Twist commercial that makes me want to gouge my eyes out) and I really don’t care about commercials that much anyway). But as for the game itself, I could usually give a rat’s ass. I’ve won a prize or two in betting on scores, but nothing too major.

But the Oscars are a different story. Normal people have the Super Bowl, I have the Academy Awards. I faithfully watch the presentation each and every year, usually attending a party in the process. This year, I decided to take it upon myself to play the host of my own Oscar Party, even going so far as to deck out the place with red carpet and require a semi-formal dress code. In the course of an evening, I managed to consume at least a half-dozen Gin Martinis as well as assorted other adult beverages, so while I may not remember every detail of the evening, I recall having a pretty good time. I managed to snap a few pictures of the event, which can be accessed here:

        

But since you probably don’t come to Movie Criticism for the Retarded for my own personal photo albums, I’ll go on to the actual ceremony itself. Or, at least, what I remember of it combined with what I can cull from the Official Oscar Website.

The 75th Annual Academy Awards ceremony went a little differently from past years, primarily due to the events of the current situation in the Middle East. Hollywood’s always been an outspoken bunch with a general left-wing stance, so it was expected that some folks might be slipping in an opinion or two on the matter. The terror alert is also at a high level, so extra precautions had been taken to ensure the safety of those attending the event, including a significant shortening of the Red Carpet where the arriving celebrities show off their wares. And for some unknown reason (I think someone at my party mentioned it was to confuse the terrorists) they decided to break from the usual order of events and gave the awards away in a different sequence from the usual. Normally, best Supporting Actress and Actor are the two leading awards, but not this year.

So here’s the list of winners, in the order assigned by the Academy’s website. I’ve also included some comments about reactions and other musings where necessary:

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Adrien Brody
THE PIANIST

I was actually kind of suprised at this one, and it certainly didn’;t help my predictions. As part of the party’s events, I gave away door prizes, based on the accuracy of Oscar predictions. The person with the most correct walked away with a copy of the
Pulp Fiction Collector’s Edition, the second most correct received a paperback edition of Manuel Alvarado’s
The Movie Book, and as a booby prize, the person with the least amount correct obtained a copy of some crappy HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS meets AIR BUD kids’ movie called
BIG & HAIRY that I received as a gag gift myself three Christmases ago. Very few people guessed that Brody would win this award. I thought he gave a really heartfelt little speech as well. He actually sounded sincere and probably didn’t expect to win.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Chris Cooper
ADAPTATION

Well-deserved. That’s all I’ll say.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Nicole Kidman
THE HOURS

This is the one acting award that the majority of prognosticators nailed. I missed this announcement.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Catherine Zeta-Jones
CHICAGO

Against my better judgment, I predicted this wrong. Oh, on this site a month and a half ago, I nailed it in my Predictions article, but changed my mind and went with Kathy Bates at the last minute. Not that it mattered, because I excluded myself from eligibility from the prizes, but I still felt like participating.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
SPIRITED AWAY
Hayao Miyazaki

ART DIRECTION
CHICAGO
John Myhre (Art Direction); Gordon Sim (Set Decoration)

CINEMATOGRAPHY
ROAD TO PERDITION
Conrad L. Hall

COSTUME DESIGN
CHICAGO
Colleen Atwood

DIRECTING
THE PIANIST
Roman Polanski

I’m pretty miffed about this one. Everyone was expecting Scorcese or Rob Marshall to walk away with the prize, and Polanski was pretty far down the line primarily because of his legal troubles. I boycotted THE PIANIST because I don’t support paedophiles, but I guess the Academy awards them.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE
Michael Moore and Michael Donovan

Speaking of miffed…

Michael Moore is a pig. I used to respect him as a filmmaker even though I didn’t necessarily share his political views, but that’s changed. I enjoyed BOWLING FOR COULMBINE as a piece of entertainment, but was aware that Moore had stretched truths and even fabricated “facts” to suit his agenda. He went from admitting that fact to flat-out denying it, and then he decided to use the Oscars as a platform to push his anti-war agenda. Wait, scratch that. He pushed an anti-Bush agenda and masqued it as an anti-war agenda. In essence, he broke a silent agreement that the organizers had made with those in attendance to keep the agendas out of the ceremony, and used a bunch of unwitting nominees to back him up (note the suprised looks on some of their faces when he spoke). He deserved to get booed off the stage. I don’t care what your beliefs are, you get up like that, you make an ass out of yourself, you deal with the consequenses. I could make a whole article out of this, but this isn’t really the proper forum for it.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
TWIN TOWERS
Bill Guttentag and Robert David Port

FILM EDITING
CHICAGO
Martin Walsh

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
NOWHERE IN AFRICA
Germany
Directed by Caroline Link

MAKEUP
FRIDA
John Jackson and Beatrice De Alba

It was either this or THE TIME MACHINE, and I still had people predicting THE TIME MACHINE. C’mon, folks. The Unibrow clenched it.

MUSIC (SCORE)
FRIDA
Elliot Goldenthal

MUSIC (SONG)
8 MILE
‘Lose Yourself’
Music by Eminem, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto; Lyric by Eminem

Holy DAMN this shocked me. I felt it was deserved, but never actually expected it to happen, especially after Eminem snubbed the ceremony.

BEST PICTURE
CHICAGO
Martin Richards

Duh. Really.

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
THE CHUBBCHUBBS!
Eric Armstrong

I predicted this because it had the coolest title.

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
THIS CHARMING MAN (DER ER EN YNDIG MAND)
Martin Strange-Hansen and Mie Andreasen

I was quite happy to discover that I wasn’t the only one at my party who predicted this to be the winner based solely on the fact that it’s a really cool song by the Smiths.

SOUND
CHICAGO
Michael Minkler, Dominick Tavella and David Lee

SOUND EDITING
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
Ethan Van der Ryn and Michael Hopkins

VISUAL EFFECTS
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
THE PIANIST
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
TALK TO HER
Written by Pedro Almodóvar

HONORARY AWARD
Peter O’Toole

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