The final ballots were mailed out to Academy voters this week, so this will be the time to watch, to see what nominees are touted, and how the momentum changes, as it inevitably does. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Gladiator still seem to be the two that will clash the biggest on Oscar Night, and there hasn't really been a backlash toward either. What will be interesting to watch is if a groundswell begins for a Crouching Tiger Best Picture win ... talk about the house exploding on Oscar Night! In the back of my mind, I'm kind of hoping for it, but only if Traffic cannot win.
Anyway, I'll be here each week to look at the race to Oscar and see how the momentum shifts. This week, we have some more precursor award news to get to. Not a huge precursor as far as influence on the Academy, but still worthy of note is the British Academy Film Awards, which usually came after the Oscars, but this year shifted to an earlier date, leaving Oscar as it should be, the final film awards to conclude the year. Gladiator continues its wrath of winning awards, as it collected 5 British Academy Film awards, including Best Film (its other awards were in technical categories). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won 4 awards, including the Best Director prize for Ang Lee.
I have a feeling we could see the same thing at the Academy Awards, a Gladiator Best Picture win but an Ang Lee Best Director win. Other major awards from the British Film Academy Awards, or BAFTAs, as they are known ... Best Actor went to the young Jamie Bell for Billy Elliot (no impact on the Oscars with that choice), Julia Roberts notched another prize as Best Actress for Erin Brockovich (she still remains the Oscar frontrunner), Supporting Actor went to Benicio Del Toro for Traffic, while Supporting Actress went to Julie Walters for Billy Elliot. I don't think Walter's win puts her higher on the list as the possible winner, as Billy Elliot was highly embraced by the BAFTAs, as most had expected, and was not so much by the Academy. Almost Famous took Original Screenplay, while Traffic won for Adapted Screenplay. In a sign that the Academy may be setting up the Supporting Actor Oscar as a lifetime achievement Oscar for Albert Finney, they may have seen the only standing ovation of the BAFTAs when Finney accepted the Academy Fellowship, which is their award for lifetime achievement.
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