Thanks to NCAA basketball, most Duke students are able to avoid the other embarrassing media-hype spectacle that takes place every late March--the Academy Awards. Our predictions for Sunday's winners:
Best Picture
Will Win: A Beautiful Mind. It's down to the hokey ahistorical bio of John Forbes Nash and the empty flashbulb of Moulin Rouge. Despite its factual problems, and the nasty campaign waged by one of its opponents (some producer is spreading the word around Hollywood that Nash was a vicious anti-Semite--Oy!), Mind has the simplistic moral that Oscar voters have embraced in recent years. Love conquers all, even smear campaigns.
Should Win: The Lord of the Rings. Epics usually win,
Best Director
Will Win: Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind. Oscar voters often elevate former actors who go behind the camera, and "Opie" is about to join Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner as a Best Director winner.
Should Win: Robert Altman, Gosford Park. Altman deserves the award just for assembling such an ensemble of great British actors and not having any of them get huffy and quit.
Best Actor
Will Win: Denzel Washington, Training Day. This would be Russell Crowe's but he's been too egotistical lately (even for Hollywood) to win. Washington is a good fall back, and it's a chance to make up for not awarding him a trophy for Malcolm X.
Should Win: Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom. Too subdued to win, Wilkinson's grieving father and husband challenged middle aged men everywhere to imagine what they would do if the worst thing happened to their families.
Best Actress
Will Win: Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge. Kidman overcame Tom Cruise and tuberculosis in one year! Granted both problems were fictional, but the drama of her winning with Tom and Penelope Cruz in the audience is too much to pass over.
Should Win: Halle Berry, Monster's Ball. Give her the damn Oscar! Arguably, she gave the best performance of the year in any film, by anyone of either gender.
--Martin Barna
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