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Return of the King Leads Oscar Nominations
PurdueGraphicsMan writes "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, the final chapter in Peter Jackson's directoral masterpeice is leading the 76 Annual Academy Awards with 11 nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. Next in line with 10 nominations including Best Picture and Best director is Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Here is a full list of the nominees in all categories."
You can compare the actual nominations to Roger Ebert's predictions. He was pretty on point for Best Picture, Actor, and Supporting Actress. Its surprising to see the well liked but little seen roles getting nods. Alec Baldwin in The Cooler for one. Likewise it's interesting to see Keisha Castle-Hughes for her work in Whale Rider. Many were predicitng Charlize Theron would run away with her work in Monster but Castle-Hughes could pull an Anna Panquin upset. That role was powerful AND beloved. Something that might worka gainst Theron.
Jude Law's nod is interesting since I don't remember anyone really talking about his performance (as compared to what Sean Penn, Bill Murray and Johnny Depp did this year). Ebert picked Russell Crowe's in Master and Commander which, likewise, didn't seem to have a big impact.
Strangest one is that City of God got three nominations... although it had its NY/LA debut in December 2003 (Ebert made specific mention of it in his Top of 2004 to explain its absence). But here its getting nods for Cinematography, Direction and Writing. It probably only has a chance in Cinematography where RotK is (strangely) absent.
RotK will probably run away with Makeup, Music(Song), Sound, Writing (Adapted), and Costume Design. Of course those are the second tier ones that end up as consolation prizes for a lot of folks. The interesting thing will see how it does in the big categories (which I guess Adapted Screenplay is one).
What is music when you despise all sound?
I think it's very interesting to see that (IMHO) the two best movies to be nominated for best director are ROTK and Lost in Translation. One is a huge epic with a billion setpieces, thousands of extras, and a weaving storyline; this is an extreme challenge to direct. On the other hand, Lost in Translation features very few actors, very few locations, and some of the best low-key directing I've ever seen.
I'm glad that the Oscars are nominating directors who are working from such completely different directions, but both achieving such brilliant results.
hi all (george here)
i have NO idea what the academy is SMOKING here!! god!! return of the king was about the WORST movie i saw all year!! for starters we got to the movie about ten minutes LATE because it took my god damn wife so LONG to shovel the snow out of the driveway and then when we FINALLY got there the idiot at the ticket booth did not accept the tickets i printed out from fan dango because he said that the effing NUMBER was INVALID!! god!!
so then we get to the concession stand and this MORON puts too much butter on my popcorn which gives me gas, but that didn't matter because then my wife spilled the WHOLE god damn BAG as she was carrying it into the theater, also she spilled our sodas, god!! how can i sit for THREE HOURS without soda!! and then during the whole movie this slut in front of us was talking on her CELL PHONE about how her next door neighbor's shit zoo had just given birth to puppies, now what in the hell, PUPPIES, who effing cares!! turn off your god damn phone you hippy
then there was this baby next to us that kept CRYING, now if you have a loud baby take some advice from me (george) and leave the god damn thing at HOME now do you got that!! have a little bit of courtesy for your fellow man now do you got that, all in all it was the worst moviegoing experience of the year and i cannot understand these nominations
your buddy
-gbd
Actually the only other movie I saw on the list was Lost in Translation. The closer you look at the film itself the more flaws you see. The script is full of cliches (particularly when you think who the director is) but thankfully spends most of the time observing the characters being themselves - and Bill Murray put in what is without a doubt the finest and most honest performance in his career. He totally deserves best actor.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
10. Biggest scifi/fantasy genre movie WITHOUT a character that looks like the Oscar statue (Bye, C-3PO!)
9. Best performance by mountain beacons
8. Biggest elephants
7. Best Evil Lighthouse in any movie in all of 2003.
6. The National Cherry Tomato Board would like to make sure that John Noble is nominated for best actor for his work as Denethor.
5. "Most Costumed Geeks in Theatre since Star Trek 6"
4. Best use of recycled pointed ears left over from collapsed "Star Trek" franchise.
3 rings for the elven kings
2. Best title ripped off from that of 3rd "Star Wars" film.
1. Those cheesy green ghosts didn't get nominated for "Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion". Let's nominate them for their ROTK cameo instead.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It's possible that RotK could win Best Film and Best Director. Best Director seem almost obvious, until you consider that no woman has ever won the Best Director award before. In fact, only two women have previously been nominated, Lina Wertmuller and Jane Campion.
This raise the question of whether women in the Academy will vote for Coppola, to see a woman get the award for once and set a precedent. It's not as if Coppola doesn't deserve it either, she made a delightful and semi-profiund film on a 3 million dollar budget.
Of course, Jackson's achievement with The Lord Of The Rings is amazing and probably the largest single project a director has ever taken on, so he deserves it too.
All I'm saying is don't be too surprised if there's an surprise upset, for Coppola, in these two categories. Coppola has a strong chance, especially since RotK may be considered a "boy" film by female members of the Academy.