End of Year Recap and New Predictions
Now I can breathe a sigh of relief. The last couple of weeks contained such a flurry of precursor awards, and now that we're in the holiday timeframe, we don't have another precursor until next week, with the National Society of Film Critics.
So this week in my last article before the New Year (2001 finally here, hard to believe), I will reflect on what the precursor awards have told us thus far, and what the Oscar race is shaping up to be. We're still over a month away from February 13, when the Academy Award nominations will finally be announced, but some trends have emerged. Finally, I will take another shot at predicting who and what will get nominated in the major categories for the 73rd Annual Oscars.
First though, a quick reaction to the latest film I saw ... Cast Away. I was quite impressed by a lot of this film. But I agree with the majority of the critics ... some of the scenes at the end, after Hanks returns to civilization, are trite and forced and do not add much to the film. Hanks is indeed incredible, and well deserving of another Oscar nod for Best Actor ... to carry the film like he does is amazing, and riveting ... I was never once bored during the entire time on the island, in fact, I wanted to see more. The film actually makes you have that sense of time away from everything and everybody, and it brilliantly only shows us Hanks, never going back to civilization to show everything happening in his absence. Even though I felt that the final sequences when he returns seemed disjointed and forced, I did like some of the scenes. I liked some of the discussions between Hunt and Hanks in her kitchen ... I thought they captured the right mood of awkwardness that would be entailed. However, I found myself wanting a different spin on an ending ... I thought his character would be even more changed ... he seemed to regain his sense of self pretty quickly. I would have liked to have seen more of what it would be really like to re-enter a civilization that thinks you had died. But wow, overall, wonderfully done ... so bold to film Hanks doing regular things on the island, no music ... and again, what a performance.
I must admit something though, I'm getting tired of Zemeckis revealing the entire movie in his trailers ... he did that for What Lies Beneath too. I think it would have given his final brave effort to leave the island more drama and tension, plus you just find yourself reciting trailer moments during the film ... he even showed the trailer all the way to the final shot for Christ's sake.
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