Fantasy Finally Finds Oscar
If you are still waiting with anticipation for the Oscars to reveal the best of the best of 2003, you are going to be waiting a long time. The Oscars aired this past Sunday, almost a month earlier than usual. If you did miss it, or you purposely didn’t watch the broadcast because it is so fucking long and you have a life. Here is a list of the winners. The major surprise of the night was the significant sweep made by the final installment of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, since the Academy has been reluctant in the past to award the Best Picture award to a fantasy film. The first two films in the LOTR trilogy were passed over for more dramatic movies, but LOTR has finally made its mark. winning an astounding 11 awards, tying previous films Titanic and Ben-Hur for the most Oscars won by a single movie. While none of the actors in the film were recognized by the Academy this year (Sir Ian McKellen was nominated in 2002), LOTR took home Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Original Score, Original Song (“Into the West”), and Costume Design. Peter Jackson received the Oscar for Best Director and the cast and producers joined him on stage to receive the nod for Best Picture. Other notable awards were Sean Penn for Mystic River, Renee Zellwegger for Cold Mountain, Tim Robbins for Mystic River, and Charlize Theron for Monster. Sofia Coppola grabbed the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for her much talked about film Lost In Translation. Finding Nemo was honored with a nod for Best Animated Feature, Canada’s The Barbarian Invasions received Best Foreign Language Film, and The Fog of War won for Documentary Feature. Harvie Krumpet received an Oscar for Animated Short, and Two Soldiers for Live-Action Short. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World took home awards for Cinematography and Sound Editing. All in all it was a successful night for the Academy Awards; Billy Crystal was amusing as always and nothing horrible happened. It was actually quite a boring and predictable four hours. Oh, I forgot: Thank you New Zealand.
Broderick and Lane Bow Out
There has been speculation that Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, who returned to Broadway last year to reprise their roles as Leo Bloom and Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks’ The Producers, would continue to act in the show through April 4. It is now confirmed that they will not be extending their tour of duty. People are wondering who will replace the seemingly irreplaceable Lane and Broderick. There was talk that Kelsey Grammer would fill in, but the star of Frasier decided to do a telefilm instead. Other rumors are indicating a possibility of Jon Lovitz retaining a coveted spot as well. Mel Brooks has had a difficult time getting the right actors to fill in from the beginning; however, Broderick and Lane have other projects in development.
Gigli Slammed at Razzies
Gigli was named Worst Picture of the year at the 24th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards last Saturday. The film scored in just about every anti-Oscar category in which it was nominated. The movie won six awards, leaving only Showgirls and Battlefield Earth, each with seven, claiming more dishonors. In addition, Ben Affleck was named Worst Actor and ex-Fiancee Jennifer Lopez took home the Worst Actress award. Sylvester Stallone was honored with Worst Supporting Actor for his work in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and Demi Moore received the Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress for Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
Archived article by Amanda Hodes