Reaction to the 73rd Annual Oscar Nominations!
Miramax has done it again. Everything pretty much played out as most had expected when the 73rd Annual Academy Award nominations were announced this past Tuesday, but once again, the Miramax Machine delivered again, and another less-than-deserving film took over a coveted Best Picture slot, kicking out a number of films which clearly deserved it more. The biggest travesty is that Chocolat's Best Picture nomination most likely kicked out Almost Famous, a film which was practically universally regarded as one of the year's best films, and almost everyone agreed it should have been included in the five Best Picture nominees.
I'm not sure exactly what Miramax's secret is, but surely this year everyone must see their shameless Oscar campaigning at work, because Chocolat is clearly their weakest entry in this category ever. Most reviews considered it a fine fluff film at best. If I get a chance next week, I may devote an entire column to discussing what is becoming a nasty epidemic at the Academy Awards, and perhaps try to analyze why it continues to work. Besides, Miramax may do all the shameless promoting and shoving-it-in-your-faces, but it's still the Academy members who make the nominations.
Anyway, enough about that ... otherwise, the 73rd Annual Academy Award nominations pretty much came down as expected. As I predicted, Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came down with the most nominations, and Crouching Tiger did even better than I predicted ... I figured it for 7 or 8 nominations, and it pulled off ten, a record for a foreign language film. They are clearly the two front-runners, and I still stick with my prediction that Gladiator will indeed go on to win Best Picture, as has usually happened to the film that goes into Oscar Night with the most nominations.
Let's look at the major categories, see how my predicting went, analyze the nominees selected, and finally look at any early favorites to win.
BEST PICTURE
I was 4 for 5, not bad at all ... I correctly predicted Gladiator, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich, and Traffic. Of course, Chocolat is the one that kicked out my other prediction, Almost Famous, which really deserved to be in that list. The biggest disappointment in this year's Oscar nominations is that Cameron Crowe's incredible film only received four nominations, and no Picture or Director nomination. Steven Soderbergh sets a new Oscar record, being up for two Best Director nods, and has two of his films up for Best Picture. I was very happy to see that Traffic did indeed make it in, but unfortunately, this battle is between Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The inclusion of Chocolat in this list is just amazing. How Miramax continues to do this is beyond me. Chocolat was a fine, enjoyable film, but not near Best Picture quality. And when you think of the films which could have and should have taken its place, it's a real travesty.
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