Monday, 1 March 2004
w00t! g33kz 0wnz0r3d teh 05c4rz!!11!
We geeks r00l: In a clean sweep at the Academy Awards, Peter Jackson and LotR: The Return of the King won in all eleven categories in which they had been nominated. Crossing over from my music loves, Annie Lennox's composition/performance won best song (if you missed it, you didn't stay for the credits). What a great combo.
I was glad to see that Lost in Translation won Sofia Coppola the best original screenplay, and that Sean Penn won best leading actor. I really liked both these nominees, and wouldn't have wanted LotR's success to have contributed to pushing them out completely.
It would've been great to see Johnny Depp win best leading actor, but the Academy surely took into account the success of the 300-pound gorilla of fantasy films. On the other hand, similar logic didn't apply to Benicio Del Toro, who didn't win the best supporting actor. Tough choice; Tim Robbins certainly earned it so I'm not too disappointed.
Funny that I pay attention to all this, since I'm really not a fan of the Oscars (or any industry awards ceremonies). No surprise, but I find them to be self-congratulatory fluff for what amounts to a rather incestuous king-making process. On the other hand, it's great to see so many good films come out in the last year and that so many made the list. Guess they got me, hook, line, and sinker.
Thanks to foreign distribution lag and my not going to the theatre as much as usual, I haven't yet seen a good half-dozen of the nominees. Gotta get cracking.