Best Cinematography deservedly went to Peter Pau for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I think the Academy got art direction and costumes confused ... while most had predicted Gladiator winning for art direction and Crouching Tiger winning for costumes, the exact reverse happened!
I had changed my prediction for Film Editing at the last minute to Crouching Tiger, but Traffic deservedly won the film editing Oscar. I had predicted Best Makeup the minute I saw The Grinch, and sure enough, it won the Makeup Oscar!
As I predicted, Tan Dun took the Original Score award for his beautiful, haunting theme music to Crouching Tiger. As most everyone predicted, Bob Dylan won his first Oscar for Best Original Song for "Things Have Changed" from Wonder Boys. It would have been nice to see him in person (and he probably would have received a standing ovation), but he was on tour in Sydney, Australia, and appeared on screen in an almost spooky performance (where we they at when they were filming them live anyway?) ... it was all dark around Dylan and the band, and the camera kept going in too close on Dylan's face ...
As I had feared, Gladiator ended up taking the Sound and Visual Effects Oscars, over the much more deserving The Perfect Storm. U-571 took the Sound Editing Oscar. Another sure thing win was confirmed on Oscar Night, as Crouching Tiger took the foreign film Oscar. Once again, the Academy selected a Holocaust themed documentary for the documentary feature Oscar ... Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. Documentary Short Subject went to Big Mama, missed my educated guess on that one. Best Live Action Short Film went to Quiero Ser, while Best Animated Short Film went to Father and Daughter.
So this is one of those somewhat disappointing years, a year like 1995 when Braveheart was the safe epic choice over a film like Apollo 13. But I was impressed with the Academy spreading the wealth to several different films, at least not sweeping everything to Gladiator. It should tell you something though that Gladiator joins a very small list of films now which managed to win Best Picture, without taking at least one of the other big creative prizes, Best Director, or Best Screenplay.
So that's that ... the 2000 film awards season is now officially over. Oscar 73 is behind us. It's been a wild film awards season, and the unpredictability of this year's Oscar race added a new level of excitement (especially for Best Picture, once Soderbergh surprised by winning director, there was a real question as to which film would ultimately win for Best Picture) ... while most of us hoped for a much more deserving Traffic or Crouching Tiger win, Gladiator pulled it off.
