2000 Academy Award Predictions…
Okay, so I pick Oscar winners with about the same prescience that I pick stocks. (Send money! Quick!) But hey, five out of nine ain’t bad. Anyway, I’m remarkably consistent since I had more or less the same score last year. The real question is: does the plurality of awards won by Gladiator mean that industry insiders really think that this was the best movie made last year? Or did they simply vote for it out of nostalgia, reading it (as I did) as a sort of roman à cle about the Clinton administration?
Category Most Likely to Win Most Deserving to Win Actual Winners I Missed Completely Best Picture Best Actor Russell Crowe (Gladiator) Ed Harris (Pollock) Best Actress Julia Roberts (Erin
Brockovich) Laura Linney (You Can Count on
Me) Best Supporting Actor Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator) Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the
Vampire) Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) Best Supporting Actress Kate Hudson (Almost
Famous) Julie Walters (Billy
Elliot) Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock) Best Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon) Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) Original Screenplay David Franzoni and John Logan and William Nicholson (Gladiator) Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) Cameron Crowe (Almost
Famous) Adapted Screenplay Stephen Gaghan (Traffic) Steve Kloves (Wonder Boys) Foreign Film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(Taiwan) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(Taiwan) Total Scores 5 predictably accurate predictions 1 actual instance of justice in the universe 4 completely off the mark
Color Key to Actual Results:
The Oscar goes to…
The Oscar doesn’t go to…