Sunday, March 21, 1999
And the Oscar goes to ...
Our brave critic picks winners in year dominated by World War II and Elizabethan England
BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Oscar night is to movie lovers what the Super Bowl is to football fans. Even if you know who's going to win, you watch anyway. When the outcome is in doubt, gambling fever grabs hold.
This year, oddsmakers have been hopping as bets have shifted from World War II to Elizabethan England and back again.
ON THE AIR
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• What: 71st Annual Academy Awards
• When: 8:30 p.m. today
• Where: ABC
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Tonight will reveal whether the 5,500-plus members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences cast their lots with the masterful epic Saving Private Ryan, the effervescent Shakespeare in Love or the amazing tragi-comic import Life is Beautiful.
My prediction: There will be no Titanic-like sweep this year. Results will be all over the board; almost any category could yield a surprise.
Here is how I see the contest unfolding:
Best picture: The nominee with the purest claim to artistic nobility, The Thin Red Line, has no chance given its complexity and bland reception among ticket-buyers. Elizabeth is beautiful but not up to the level of the competition.
Both Life is Beautiful and Shakespeare in Love are proven crowd-
pleasers — as touted in aggressive Oscar campaigns by the Miramax studio. Yet, the only genuine box-office monster on the ballot is Saving Private Ryan, with a worldwide take of almost $460 million.
Such success can cut both ways; Academy voters have been known to snub money-makers. But not this year. Saving Private Ryan should and will win.
Best director: Four others are nominated, but there is no competition in this category. Steven Spielberg will win, as he should, for Saving Private Ryan.
Best actor: One of the night's best categories features five examples of honest-to-gosh excellence. Edward Norton's nomination for American History X was a surprise, and testimony to his status among his peers. Tom Hanks is beloved, but Saving Private Ryan was more an ensemble movie than an individual showcase. Ian McKellen was almost perfect in Gods and Monsters, though the movie was barely seen.
Nick Nolte packed a lifetime of acting wisdom into Affliction with a performance that begs a gold statuette. But Roberto Benigni single-handedly carried Life Is Beautiful from joy to misery and back, and he looks like the man to take home the prize.
Best actress: Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth andFernanda Montenegro in Central Station were impressive but are not well known enough in Hollywood to win.Meryl Streep, always a contender, may be too well known to collect another Oscar for One True Thing.
Emily Watson, so stunning in Breaking the Waves, deserves the Oscar for her second tour-de-force performance in Hilary and Jackie. But it is Gwyneth Paltrow, steeped in old-fashioned, high-glamour movie stardom, who will win for Shakespeare in Love.
Best supporting actor: This is another category full of top-notch performances, and an extremely close race. Geoffrey Rush in Shakespeare in Love gave one of the few comic performances to win nomination. Billy Bob Thornton was riveting in A Simple Plan, andJames Coburn showed his dramatic depth in Affliction. But I think the race will boil down to the consistently under-appreciated Ed Harris, who deserves to win for for his exquisitely understated turn in The Truman Show, versus the cannyRobert Duvall. I believe Academy voters will reward him for A Civil Action because they failed to give him the Oscar he really deserved for The Apostle.
Best supporting actress: In this category, I can't get over the feeling that Lynn Redgrave was nominated for Gods and Monsters mostly for having the courage to look ugly. Judi Dench, memorable though she was in Shakespeare in Love, spent only six minutes on screen. Brenda Blethyn in Little Voice andRachel Griffiths in Hilary and Jackie were both terrific. ButKathy Bates was simply smashing in Primary Colors and will win the Oscar she deserves.
Best screenplay (written directly for the screen): Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show), Warren Beatty and Jeremy Pikser (Bulworth) and Vincenzo Cerami and Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful) will settle for the honor of being nominated. In the end, Robert Rodat's fine script for Saving Private Ryan will take second place to the dazzling, literate, lyrical and funny Shakespeare in Love script by the deservingMarc Norman and Tom Stoppard.
Best screenplay (based on material previously produced or published): Excellence again abounds in this category, where Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters), Scott B. Smith (A Simple Plan) and Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line) will applaud politely for someone else. That someone should be Elaine May for Primary Colors; it will be Scott Frank for Out of Sight.
Best foreign film: These are the also-rans: Central Station, Brazil; Children of Heaven, Iran; The Grandfather, Spain; Italy; Tango, Argentina. This is the winner: Life Is Beautiful.
I expect Oscars in the specialized categories to be fairly widely distributed. My favorites include The Thin Red Line for best cinematography; Saving Private Ryan for all the sound categories and for film editing; Elizabeth for costumes and makeup, and What Dreams May Come for visual effects.
Because I have not seen all the nominated documentaries and short films, I will refrain from guessing about what will happen in those categories.
In music, my sentimental choice is a sweep for Randy Newman, who is nominated in all three categories for three films — original musical or comedy score, A Bug's Life; original dramatic score, Pleasantville; and original song: “That'll Do” from Babe: Pig in the City.
And the Oscar goes to ...
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