Oscar Nods Are Out

[Elmo Lewis 6]

Those with strong hearts can visit www.oscar.com to check the Academy nominations for 2003 films.

The Return of the King (11 nominations if I counted right) and Master and Commander (10 nominations) are there as predicted. No sight of Cold Mountain. We all know who is going to win so that decreases the interest even more than last year.

I of course disagree with most of the Academy's decisions. Johnny Depp?

-Ross, who thinks maybe this should be in the OT board after all.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

At least RotK is nominated for Original Score. Rightly so. Best Animated Feature should of course go to Finding Nemo. I predict Lost in Translation will win Best Picture, even though I haven't seen it.

- Marc

[Elmo Lewis 6]

City of God is the only pleasant surprise for me. Kind of rekindles the faith a bit.

Nah.

[fommes 153]

What???

No Williams in the Best Music section???

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Cold Mountain, received 7 nominations Ross.

At least Nicole Kidman did not receive a nom. for her abysmal southern accent.

Come back to Cold Mountain.

[Elmo Lewis 6]

I was talking of Best Picture category, Joe. Keep up.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

At least RotK is nominated for Original Score. Rightly so.

Plus Best Director, Best Picture, and perhaps most importantly Best Adapted Screenplay. (But where are the actor nominations??)

Best Animated Feature should of course go to Finding Nemo.

Agreed.

Marian -

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

I meant to say will of course go to Finding Nemo. No doubt about that. And if they win it, it will be very much deserved.

And yes, where are the acting noms for RotK?

- Marc

[Morlock 11]

City of God is the only pleasant surprise for me.

Me too- I'm so glad- it was one of the best movies in recent years.

(But where are the actor nominations??)

Non-evident, as they should be. Andy Serkis is the only one who deserves anything, and that'd be too risky for acadamy voters.

[TIEfighter 0]

Two ILM nominations in the VFX category...makes me confident (I´m interested in VFX)

I must say that a soundtrack year without John Williams is like the Oscars without the Oscars (the statues)

[Morlock 11]

Now that I've actualy examined the list....

That was a very interesting and unexpected list!

First of all- Seabiscuit for best picture? that was not a great movie. Although I'm happy it beat Cold Mountain.

I'm surprised about the 5 nominations for Pirates fo The Carribean. I wasn't sure Johnny Depp would get it.

Very happy about the four nominations for Cidede De Deus. Director, Cinematographer, Editer and writer- very major awards!

The acting nominations are a surprise- Of the Golden Globes nominees, only the two winners were nominated. No Scarlett Johanson (probably split the votes between her two movies), and yes to Naomi Watts and Keisha Castle-Hughes for While Rider.

Supporting actor- I'm glad you they Watanabe made the cut. I wasn't expecting Del-Toro, Honsou or Baldwin.

Supporting Actress is also a surprise- although Zelwegger and Clarkson were shoe-ins, I wasn't expecting Holyl Hunter or Marcia Gay Harden, and Shohreh Aghdashloo was a total surprise.

Foreign Language Film- I can't believe there's no Goodbye, Lenin. Best foreign film I've seen this year.

Original score- Except for Horner replacing Zimmer on the list, the rest were obvious. But I'm still very happy for Newman and Shore for making the cut.

Original song- The happiest surprise was here. They nominated A Mighty Wind! Although I thought The title song was better, A Kiss At The End of The Rainbow is a great song.

Very good choice for a very mediocre year. Much better than last year's bad selection from a great year, and except for Seabiscuit, all the movies are significantly better than Chicago.

[Bart 0]

But how could Shore recieve a nomination??? I've read here somewhere that there was a new rule that exclude sequels for some categories, such as 'Best Score'???!!!!!

Did they make an exception, or does the chance exists that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban recieves next year a nomination (even tough it is still to soon to think about that)

Wo knows the answer?

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

I have no idea, but it seems that the "recurring material" rule has either been cancelled, or just dropped for this year.

- Marc

[A24 4,331]

If the Golden Globes are an indication of who's going to win this year's Oscars then LOTR III is the lucky one.

----------------

Alex Cremers

[Hlao-roo 389]

I've listened to only two of the nominated scores, Finding Nemo and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, so it wouldn't be fair for me to give an opinion here. Based solely on what I've read, though, I would say that Cold Mountain and House of Sand and Fog are some of the weakest choices in recent memory and that they may've been picked more because of their genres and because of their composers (Yared and Horner), both of whom have won before. I might've replaced one of the choices with Seabiscuit, which I have watched and listened to.

Hmm...Best Animation Category. I hate relegating animated films to this ghetto -- will there ever be another Beauty and the Beast? I doubt it. Finding Nemo is the Shrek of a couple years ago -- a critical/popular darling (and a better film than Seabiscuit and possibly Lost in Translation). If neither could pick up Best Picture noms, I doubt anything's coming in the future. By the way, anyone here actually seen Brother Bear? I've the impression it's sort of a Jimmy Neutron choice -- we need another nominee, so let's pick it. But again, I haven't seen it, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Again, Lost in Translation is really beginning to strike me as overrated. I love the premise, the atmosphere, the leads, their performances, some of the script -- but the comedy got pretty lame (and arguably too disproportionately reliant on stereotypes) at times and I expect would not hold up on future viewings (although I'll find this out when I watch the DVD in February).

[Guest]

I was pretty surprised about House of Sand and Fog getting the score nod. But hey...if you can't have Johnny, at least Horner's up for one.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Only one nomination for Big Fish. I didn't see that coming.

And Holland's up for a Foreign Film nomination (Twin Sisters/De Tweeling). Huzzah!

- Marc

[MrScratch 294]

Only one nomination for Big Fish. I didn't see that coming.

Extremely disappointed in the amount of noms Big Fish didn't get, it was a much better film than many of this years contenders. Ewan McGregor deserved a nomination for that role. I also feel that Andy Serkis should be given a special honorary Oscar for the achievement that is Gollum, why aren't they recognizing this innovative role? And Astin deserves a nom for Samwise Gamgee.

I'm completely befuddled as to why 'Mystic River' has received so much praise. The film is so dreary and boring with a completely uninteresting plot and equally uninteresting characters... did anyone actually think for a second that Tim Robbins' character killed that girl? Kevin Bacon and his 'mystic' wife was a completely useless and confusing subplot. The revelation of the actual killers didn't make any sense and seemed random (ie. anyone other than Robbins' character). I haven't read the book, but I'm guessing that this is just a very poor adaptation of a fine novel. But as for the film, it tread no new cinematic territory, was a by-the-numbers mystery-drama and could have been directed by anybody.

[Trumpeteer 302]

I'm completely befuddled as to why 'Mystic River' has received so much praise. The film is so dreary and boring with a completely uninteresting plot and equally uninteresting characters.

You're the first person I've heard say that. It's the best Eastwood film, and Penn's best performance. I stand by my belief that this just might be the film to take down LOTR in the Best Picture race.

Anyway, am I the only one excited about "The Triplets of Belleville?" Maybe no one here has seen it yet. It deserves the Animated Feature Oscar. Once you see it, you will agree. And the song in the film is absolutely amazing. It might win, though the LOTR momentum might swing for Howard Shore twice this year (score and song).

Every acting category had a surprise -- or two. Djimon Honsou. Samantha Morton. Keisha Castle-Hughes being the youngest Best Actress nominee. Johnny Depp not totally out of left field but still a surprise.

I had expected this year's list to be the same old, same old. But it wasn't. Congrats to the Academy for turning their noses up at Miramax, who is out of the Best Picture race for the first time since 1995.

Oh, and James Horner's score is exactly what we've heard before, with a few new flourishes. But, as is the case every time, the score works well for the film.

Jeff -- seemingly the only one not on the LOTR bandwagon

[Morlock 11]

I don't know if MR is his best film (I really liked A Perfect World), but it is a great film. The ending was wrong I think.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

I expected to see Peter Pan with at least a couple nominations, like Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, Visual FX . . . kind of disappointing.

Ray Barnsbury

[Morlock 11]

I've heard from a few people that it was just the inevitable Peter Pan movie, one that actualy adapts the story of the book faithfully. And they said that it did have highly suggestive material under the surface.

Never the less, I still really wanna see it and I expect it to be great. I love P.J. Hogan, I think My Best Friend's Wedding is one of the best romantic comedies EVER.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

to me the biggest shock is the omission of Sean Austin for ROTK. While I haven't seen the film, everyone has talked how excellent he was. Sadly no nod, he is a very good actor, and I would like to have seen him at least get a nod. Would have been a nice mother/son oscar legacy.

[Ren 75]

I was just going to post about that and I'm certainly there with you Joe. Sean SHOULD have been nominated for his performance. it really was stellar. I feel really badly.

[Justin 2]

Sean Astin's lack of nomination is terribly dissapointing. Apparently Depp's "acting" drunk in Pirrates was better than Astin's stirring emotional performance. Overall I thought the rest of the oscars were fine.

Justin -Who can't say he's suprised at Astin's absence.

[Ren 75]

i was kind of surprised I mean he's not really a NO NAME actor. i just think that many people don't give the actors in the LOTRs enough credit for their performances.

[HPFAN_2 0]

Johny depp should not be on that list at all.

[hitman20 0]

Best score is guaranteed to go to Return of the King. I really don't see any other score having a chance to win. I really would like to see Big Fish win, especially since it's my favorite of the nominees, but, once again, ROTK will sweep the oscars, thereby proving their blindness towards other great films of merit (i.e. Big Fish). I really would like to see a surprise winner, but, I highly doubt that.

The nominees weren't all that surprising, especially since a large majority of them were the same one's at the Golden Globes.

I wish for a change, that the Oscars would somehow be different, picking movies that actually deserve the oscars, instead of who they'd like to see.

I mean honestly, was the score to Finding Nemo that great. As far as animated scores went, the best one of the year had to be Sinbad, not Nemo.

And was the Matrix not eligible or was it not nominated? That has to be a huge error on the part of the academy. I mean what's the deal with that. Nominating Cold Mountain as best score? The house of sand and fog?

What's the deal with the academy anyway?

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

I agree with you about the animated scores, hitman. Of scores for so-called children's films, both Gregson-Williams' Sinbad and Howard's Peter Pan were superior to Newman's Finding Nemo. But I guess the nom is no surprise, since the Academy continuously holds popular success above anything else.

Ray Barnsbury

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

What's wrong with Depp? I'm pleased that the Academy finally got something right, nominating him. While I am disappointed Sean Astin didn't get a nomination, this makes up for it. Besides, Sam isn't really a leading role, more a Supporting role.

I hope RotK wins Best Original Score. It really deserves to, although In my opinion so did The Two Towers. Cursed Academy... I hope Azkaban is legible next year, I know it will be a good score. Return of the King deserves pretty much all of the nominations it got. It won't win Best Picture, though it should. I would like "Into the West" to win, I liked that song. Nemo will definately win best animated picture and I wouldn't be too shattered if it won Best Original Score.

[QMM 4]

Astin still deserves it though for his phenominal work, it shouldn't matter if he was a supporting role, Depp was a supporting role too and not a main character, Frodo and Sam are the two true main characters in the LOTR.

[hitman20 0]

What's wrong with Depp? I'm pleased that the Academy finally got something right, nominating him. While I am disappointed Sean Astin didn't get a nomination, this makes up for it. Besides, Sam isn't really a leading role, more a Supporting role.

Hey, I liked Depp in that movie. I thought he was rather funny in, and he did bring some amusement to that movie. I can't wait to see how he is when he plays Willy Wonka. Especially with Elfman supposedly scoring and Burton directing.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

Johnny Depp wasn't in a supporting role in Pirates. He was the main character, have you seen the posters? He is largest and in front of the other characters, see? Okay, it's not the best way to prove it, but he had much more to do with the movie than Orlando Bloom. As the movie is about pirates and not pansy-boy blacksmiths we can assume Jack Sparrow is the leading man.

[Morlock 11]

to me the biggest shock is the omission of Sean Austin for ROTK.  While I haven't seen the film, everyone has talked how excellent he was.  Sadly no nod, he is a very good actor, and I would like to have seen him at least get a nod.  Would have been a nice mother/son oscar legacy.

I was just going to post about that and I'm certainly there with you Joe.  Sean SHOULD have been nominated for his performance.  it really was stellar.  I feel really badly.

Sean Astin's lack of nomination is terribly dissapointing. Apparently Depp's "acting" drunk in Pirrates was better than Astin's stirring emotional performance. Overall I thought the rest of the oscars were fine.

Justin -Who can't say he's suprised at Astin's absence.

Astin still deserves it though for his phenominal work, it shouldn't matter if he was a supporting role, Depp was a supporting role too and not a main character, Frodo and Sam are the two true main characters in the LOTR.

Depp is not a supporting role- I havn't counted exactly, but he must have almost as much screen time as Orlando Bloom.

and JEEZUS! Astin was not that great! He was very good, perfect for the role, right voice...... but A. I don't think looking sad and hurt means emotional and B. Emotional is far easier to play that comic. Johnny Depp is a great actor, and what he did in PoTC was real acting that requires real talent. If I gained 40 pounds or whatever, I could play Sam. I could never play Sparrow.

Astin is a very good actor, and I look forward to all his next subjects- but I found him more compelling in Goonies than I did here. And I love his parents too.

[HPFAN_2 0]

There is nothing wrong with Depp its just he shouldn't not be in that category. His performance in pirates wasn't even mediocre. Compared to Pefromances like Tom Hanks' Philidelphia Al Pacino'sScent of A Woman Denzel Washington's Training Day Daniel Day Lewis' Gangs Of New York and George C Scott's Patton He doesn't deserve a nomination much less an award.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

But he's not up against any of those actors. The standard of quality for a nomination inevitably varies from year to year.

Ray Barnsbury

[CYPHER 1]

Well I'm a little bit pissed off about some of the Oscar nominations. That's largely because one of my favourite films of last year Cold Mountain, despite receiving many other nominations was overlooked in four categories I thought it definitely deserved a mention - Picture, Actress, Director and Adapted Screenplay. And then when I look at the films that squeezed it out of these areas I chunder at the thought of Seabiscuit, Whale Rider and City of God (only a little bit of upchuck here ). To be honest and fair, I haven't seen any of these three films. But there's a reason for that - I avoided them like the plague at the cinemas.

Where is Scarlett Johansson's nomination for Lost in Translation? Why was Shore's score for Return of the King nominated in defiance of that rule banning sequel scores, when his work for The Two Towers was last year deemed either invalid or inadequate? And I agree with you Ray about Peter Pan being royally dissed, especially James Newton Howard's score.

The Academy used to be heavily criticised for making highly conservative choices, nominating the same old static and safe films over and over again. One only needs to think back as recently as a few years ago when The Green Mile and The Cider House Rules were praised while Being John Malkovich, Three Kings and Magnolia were largely neglected. Now it seems that the Academy has committed itself to making wacky, retarded and shocking choices in order to retain some much needed sense of vitality, surprise and attention at the arse-end of the awards season. I mean Keisha Castle-Hughes??? WTF?!?

CYPHER - going to have a lie down now and watch some tennis .

[diskobolus 3]

I agree with you about the animated scores, hitman.  Of scores for so-called children's films, both Gregson-Williams' Sinbad and Howard's Peter Pan were superior to Newman's Finding Nemo.  But I guess the nom is no surprise, since the Academy continuously holds popular success above anything else.

Ray Barnsbury

I agree that Peter Pan is definitely better than Finding Nemo, thuogh they are two of the few scores I liked enough to buy this year. In actuality, Peter Pan's thematic material is more plentiful and engaging than Finding Nemo's only good theme, namely the Egg/Nemo theme.

Return of the King will win, and I agree with it.

[Morn 8]

What, no Big Fish or The Last Sumuari for best picture!!!!!! No matrix for best score!!!!!!

[pixie_twinkle 48]

I am pretty amazed that Last Samurai wasn't nominated. I thought the acting, music, directing, and overall story were far superior to Master and Commander, which I thought was a fun bit of fluff (which I enjoyed btw!). Last Samurai should have won best picture this year as far as I'm concerned.

I also agree Big Fish should have been up there. Both Ewen McGreggor and Albert Finney were superb.

I'm not surprised the Johnny Depp was nominated. I thought his performance in Pirates made the movie. I hope he gets it (which he won't). I am also not surprised that Sean Aston didn't get nominated. I think he's a pretty bad actor for the most part, and I honestly think both he and Elijah Wood were horribly miscast. Even if one ignores the cringe-worthy English accents, they made for a very bland and undynamic pair in the movies. Admittedly Sean shows a little more flair in ROTK, but not enough to redeem him in my opinion. Still, if ROTK wins best picture I will be happy. Great flick!

[Morlock 11]

The Academy used to be heavily criticised for making highly conservative choices, nominating the same old static and safe films over and over again. One only needs to think back as recently as a few years ago when The Green Mile and The Cider House Rules were praised while Being John Malkovich, Three Kings and Magnolia were largely neglected. Now it seems that the Academy has committed itself to making wacky, retarded and shocking choices in order to retain some much needed sense of vitality, surprise and attention at the arse-end of the awards season. I mean Keisha Castle-Hughes??? WTF?!?    

The choices this year are far from retarded. City of God is the best movie shown this year, way better than RoTK.

[King Mark 3,630]

I saw Master and Commander today.I guess I was hyped by the comments here and ended up disappointed.Great looking picture,but the plot was lacking,or at least i found it uninvolving.RotK should win best picture.

as for Howard Shore,I don't see why he deserves it since he won for FotR and the scores from the 3 films are very much interchangeable,contrary to Williams Star Wars and Indy scores.But I didn't hear any other score that deserves it either.

K.M.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

There is nothing wrong with Depp its just he shouldn't not be in that category. His performance in pirates wasn't even mediocre. Compared to Pefromances like Tom Hanks' Philidelphia Al Pacino'sScent of A Woman Denzel Washington's Training Day Daniel Day Lewis' Gangs Of New York and George C Scott's Patton He doesn't deserve a nomination much less an award.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what makes a great actor is the ability to transform oneself into a completely different person, and make it plausable. How well this is done lies in the difference between the actor and the character. Every year we see people like Nicole Kidman (no offence, I'm Australian and proud of her) winning/being nominated for dramatic roles. All of these people have no real characteristics, such as accents and behaviour. Much of Drama's potential is in dramatic arts, but a good bit of it comes from comedy. In comedy you can do the most unimaginable things with a character and mould them as you please. It's a very refreshing change for the Academy to nominate somebody for Outstanding Comedic performance. Depp won't win, but he deserves to.

And because this is a site about movie scores (or more specifically JW's scores) I'm appalled at the fact that neither of the Matrix scores were nominated. As I've said before, Return of the King deserves to win. It was the best score in the batch. Simple as that, no "Shore already won from a LotR score, UNFAIR!". Just the fact that while the Academy hold none of these values, the award goes to the score that is the best.

[TIEfighter 0]

I also feel that Andy Serkis should be given a special honorary Oscar for the achievement that is Gollum, why aren't they recognizing this innovative role?

Don´t worry, they´ll surely put him into the "In Memoriam" tape a few decades from now :?

[Morlock 11]

And because this is a site about movie scores (or more specifically JW's scores) I'm appalled at the fact that neither of the Matrix scores were nominated. As I've said before, Return of the King deserves to win. It was the best score in the batch. Simple as that, no "Shore already won from a LotR score, UNFAIR!". Just the fact that while the Academy hold none of these values, the award goes to the score that is the best.

Neither the Matrix nor the LoTR scores were eligable, they just made an exception for RoTK as the rules were no very well defined, and the movie so popular.

If Empire Strikes Back could lose to Fame, than RoTK is certainly no more deserving.

[Ren 75]

I think some of Astin's dialogue with Frodo is great.

[Yoda Longbottom 0]

as for Howard Shore,I don't see why he deserves it since he won for FotR and the scores from the 3 films are very much interchangeable,contrary to Williams Star Wars and Indy scores.But I didn't hear any other score that deserves it either.

Let me join you in the minority, King.

I myself wouldn't award it the Oscar if I were to judge the score separately from the movie on its pure musical purpose. But it must work exceptionally well with the images that the Academy coincided in giving it the nod. But since, and thankfully, motion pictures part in about 50% on a score success/failure so the quality of music itself is no longer commanding, I'm not too disgruntled. Purely musically taken, of the nominees, Big Fish and Cold Mountain have both had a lot more to offer, in my opinion.

Maybe there'll never be the real joust of scores where they would be evaluated solely on its musical qualities, maybe because they were never meant to be judged separately from pictures they were written for. And it's pity. Some composers can write wonderful, independent stuff......!

Interesting that Shore's LOTR has managed to cause a lot more debates and praising than Williams' two most recent concert works altogether. Are we still at JWFan.net.....?

[Hlao-roo 389]

Interesting that Shore's LOTR has managed to cause a lot more debates and praising than Williams' two most recent concert works altogether. Are we still at JWFan.net.....?

I would point out that probably far more people here have listened to Shore's work, which is readily available on CD.

[OrchDork 0]

I agree with both of you, KM and Yoda. With RotK, I just don't think he deserves it. Not necessarily because he won it for Fellowship, but because I didn't hear anything that was really new (yes, I've listened to the score outside of the film -- my roommate has the soundtrack). The score sounded to me like Shore reorchestrated and arranged the themes from the previous two movies (albeit wonderfully). Isn't the category titled Best Original Score? I just don't think Shore's score to RotK was very original -- there wasn't much new material. I agree with KM, as far as Williams' scores to Star Wars and Indy -- all had new material for each sequel, with hardly any thematic references to previous films. I think the scores to be nominated by the Academy should be looked at ("analyzed") outside of the film (keeping in mind the film for which the music was composed), to really determine the quality of the music. But that's just my opinion.

Very interesting question you posed, Yoda... indeed, there have been hardly any topics on Williams' "Soundings" and "Concerto for Horn"... what does that say?

[Hlao-roo 389]

Very interesting question you posed, Yoda... indeed, there have been hardly any topics on Williams' "Soundings" and "Concerto for Horn"... what does that say?  

It says people, for better or for worse, might be more interested in film scores than in John Williams's latest concert works, neither of which have recordings available for purchase or for theft from P2P networks (or at least very few).