The 76th Annual Academy Awards

The 2004 Academy Awards show was was pretty plain this year, with no surprise winners and this year lacked tons of nominations. The Best Picture this year went to the obvious third sequel "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" with eleven wins tying with "Ben Hur" and "Titanic". Billy Crystal was fine as the host, he usually has a good sense of humor, but this year as the Master of Ceremonies probably wasn't his greatest compared to the 1997 Oscar show. The Best Director went to Peter Jackson for "Lord of the Rings", and Sofia Coppola won the Best Screenplay award. Blake Edwards took the Lifetime Honorary Achievement Award for his long career as a comedy director. The acting awards were kind of odd, I was hoping Bill Murray would win the Best Actor Oscar for "Lost in Translation", but he lost to Sean Penn for Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River", Tim Robbins won the Supporting Actor for "Mystic River" and Renee Zellweger took the Supporting Actress award for "Cold Mountain". Charlize Theron won the Best Actress Oscar as real life serial killer Aileen Wuornios for "Monster" the film's only nomination and win. Another odd thing about the acting awards this year was the International stars that didn't win. We have New Zealand born actress Keisha Castle-Hughes for "Whale Rider". Hughes was the youngest ever nominated in the Best Actress category. Japanese actor Ken Watanabe was nominated for "The Last Samauri", African American actor Dijimon Honseu was nominated for "In America" as was English actress Samantha Morton and Iraq born actress Shohreh Aghdashloo for "The House of Sand and Fog". Other known nominees for acting included Diane Keaton for "Something's Gotta Give", Johnny Depp for "Pirates of the Caribean", Alec Baldwin for "The Cooler", Ben Kingsley for "The House of Sand and Fog" and Holly Hunter for "Thirteen". Academy President Frank Pierson did a terrific job at presenting the In Memoriam segment of the show, which was very long this year to pay tribute to the many stars that died this year. They included Gregory Peck, Bob Hope, Hope Lange, Wendy Hiller, Charles Bronson, directors Elia Kazan and John Schlesinger, Buddy Hackett, Buddy Ebsen, Art Carney, Jeanne Crain, Guy Rolfe, Ron O'Neal, Hume Cronyn, Karen Morley, Robert Stack, John Ritter, Ann Miller, Donald O'Connor, Gregory Hines, Michael Jeter and a very special memorial to screen legend Katharine Hepburn.

"Lord of the Rings - Return of the King" was NOT what won all 11 awards, now was it. EVERYBODY who made a speech in accepting an award talked about ALL the movies. So...why didn't they just hold up on the first two, not include them in those award nominations for the last two years, and then allow the whole trilogy to be nominated this year, since that is, in fact, what really won those awards. And, I, not being a fan of the books (Oh, Heavens, a heathen in our midst!!!) did not find the movies to be engrossing. After talking to so many people, including those in my own family, I truly believe that it is those people who loved the books, who loved the movies, and wanted them to win. I WAS BORED! "The Return of the King" was especially boring without the first two movies. All it was, was one computer generated graphic battle scene after another. At least in the first two you had the interesting bits with the two wizards. Personally, I would have preferred to see any of the other four pictures win, and I didn't even see all of them. And I liked "Cold Mountain" and would have liked to see that one nominated. I want a movie with a story to win. "Titanic" had a story. The movie was masterfully done, so there is no comparison to it's awards.

But hey, at least "LOTR-Return of the King" didn't have any acting nominations. Why do you think that was??? The only one that would have even deserved a nomination out of the 3rd movie was Sean Astin. I was so GLAD to see all the actors that were nominated, and the ones that did win. All the comments so far have hardly mentioned any of them in a positive light. "Mystic River" should have won Best Picture. "Lord of the Rings" should have won some specially made up award for endurance that would have applied to all three movies. I also really, really liked "Master and Commander". I learned a lot about a lot of things. Sword fighting on a small ship for instance. How you can learn from nature and apply it to warfare or anything else. And THAT movie really built a real ship to work on, and had REAL battle scenes that were not computer generated. WOW!! What a novel idea! Oh well, I guess Buster Keaton had that idea first, when he did his own real stunts off of real trains, and clock towers and all kinds of things. And that was in the "silent era" of movies. People were really clever then. NO WAY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH should the final LOTR have won all those awards for all three movies in one year, unless they had asked to be allowed to do that to begin with. Many of those technical awards should have gone to "Master and Commander", "Seabiscuit", "Pirates of the Caribbean", etc., etc. Any other year they would have. Who votes on these things anyway??? Some somebodies need to get a grip. That is all.

It all began so well with Billy Crystal's amazing opening number but after that nothing spectacular happened. What happened to all the musical and dance numbers the Oscar ceremony always used to had?

And as for the awards, nothing unexpected happened and it wasn't even tense since all the winners were already as good as known weeks before the ceremony. The only category that was tense was the one for best performance by an actor in a leading role. Bill Murray and Sean Penn were favorites but there also was a chance for Johnny Depp to win. Sean Penn won and most likely he deserved it to win and oh boy, Bill Murray looked mad and disappointing. Billy Crystal responded brilliantly with saying: Common Bill we love you! And he was right at that. Anyway Bill Murray deserved to win an Oscar years ago for his role in "Rushmore" but that's a whole other issue. I just hope he will get nominated again. No doubt that he then will win his long deserved Oscar.

And then the big winner of the night: "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King". It won 11 Oscars, in other words it won everything it was nominated for. Finally justice will most people say but as a movie critic you can hardly call it justice. Sure I understand why it won, it was a tribute to the ending of one of the best trilogy's in movie history and a compensation for the last two years when the previous two movie hardly won any Oscar's of importance. But I don't think it's really fair to give just only the last movie all the awards, they should have awarded all the three movies since they are all part of a trilogy that should be seen as one big whole movie. And really did they have to win really every award they were nominated for? It wasn't really fair and it didn't do any justice to all the other movies that were nominated and it surely didn't do any good to the tension but at least the fans are happy now.

The presenters were nothing special this year, except for Robin Williams and Adrien Brody that were at least a bit interesting. The "thanks speeches" were as always not interesting and nobody even cried although some came close to. But at least there was luckily hardly anything political said.

All in all; nothing spectacular or exciting this year. And thank God that "Lord of the Rings" will not be a contestant next year! The only reason why it was watchable was because of Billy Crystal, the "in memoriam sequences" and the honorary award for Blake Edwards who in my opinion really deserved it.

5/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I always watch with immense pleasure The Oscars as they proved to be the most important and influential event in the film business. Producers, directors, screenwriters, actors all around the world wait for their work to be acknowledged as a sign of recognition of their talent, commitment and inspiration!

TALENT, COMMITMENT AND INSPIRATION!...Key words! They are the essence of true art; it's like Soderbergh so nicely put it (on winning the much coveted Oscar)that we should first of all thank all those who take a pencil and create a piece of canvas or write a script before thanking friends and relatives.

You can imagine my surprise with last year's Oscar Ceremony:Lord of the Rings won 11 out of 11 nominations... a film that otherwise lacks both talent and inspiration but unfolds as a continuous futile effort to shock and amaze!!

Nevertheless I have to give Peter Jackson credit for his commitment(the only key word that applies for the production)to put an end to this long, long sometimes too long struggle to adapt(very poorly!) a book which conquered the hearts of millions of children and adults worldwide!

But is this the true purpose of The Academy? Do we still have to praise films which are beautifully "dressed" like an artificial Christmas Tree with impressive decorations but eventually lacks branches!

I'm not Minghella's number one fan but "Cold Mountain"was the best of 2004! Not by far though! Perhaps Cold Mountain's best merit would be that it respects truthfully the golden rule of Hitchcock's films: the real villain is never shown! We can sense it in this raw and brutal environment, we can feel the presence of ravens floating above the reddish snow but we are never told precisely what forces govern the destiny of two main characters! (Well done for Law, Kidman and Zellweger)

Anyway here are MY Oscar winners for 2004:

Best Picture: Cold Mountain

Best Director: Fernando Meirelles (City of God)

Best Actor: Sean Penn (21 Grams)

Best Actress: Charlize Theron (Monster)

Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins (Mystic River)

Best Supporting Actress: Marcia Gay Harden (Mystic River)

Best Foreign Language Picture: Good-bye Lenin

Best Animated Feature: Finding Nemo

Nevertheless a poor year for the Oscars! My vote for the 2004 Ceremony 7/10

At least that's what host Billy Crystal said in the commercials leading up to the 76th Annual Academy Awards. On the contrary, the 2004 version of the Oscars was probably the most predictable and surprise-free show in the Academy's history. The only thing surprising about the ceremony was just how predictable it would be; in particular, the perfect 11-for-11 award night for "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King." Even the awards to the actors were predictable as odds-on favorites Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Charlize Theron, and Renée Zellweger took home Oscars. If only there were any surprises like a Bill Murray, Naomi Watts, or a Johnny Depp win. Nevertheless, the standing ovation for Sean Penn was nice and respectful (even though I didn't really care for his jab at the President, but he deserves recognition for his fine film career).

Despite its monotony, I still somewhat enjoyed the ceremony. Billy Crystal was as good as ever and never lost a beat throughout the three-hour-plus event. His opening video sequence was great also, especially with controversial Michael Moore being squashed in a Lord of the Rings spoof. However, the most hysterical moment went to Will Ferrell and Jack Black as they sang "You're Boring," the unknown lyrics to the music that comes on when winners go a little long on their acceptance speech. Even director Blake Edwards added some humor in his Lifetime Achievement Award, by speeding his wheelchair through a wall and making a very nice speech about all the people that contribute to Hollywood from actors to writers to that one janitor guy!

So the three-hour event did have its moments. There was some good comedy thrown in, some nice music (not exciting music, but nice music), and at least I was able to root for at least one film in each category. Too bad I haven't seen "Return of the King" yet, or it may have been an even better night!

My IMDb Rating: 7/10