Best Picture, 2003

It may be the only time a Best Picture winner was correctly predicted by all two years in advance. When The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released to critical hosannas but A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture, we all looked at each other and said, "They're saving it for the third one." Sure enough, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King swept the season (I believe LAFCA was the only holdout, giving its Best Picture prize to American Splendor). When Oscar Night came, we all saw it coming:

Not a nailbiter, though that's a shame because all five nominees are pretty damn great. The nominees for Best Picture, ranked from 5th to 1st:

Best Actor, 2003

When Sean Penn won Best Actor in 2003, it was the first and, to my memory, the only time I’d ever seen the host himself apologize to one of the other nominees. That’s because while Penn’s victory wasn’t a total shock - there was a late surge of support for him and the film - conventional wisdom at the time had Bill Murray as the inevitable winner. Both Penn and Murray won Golden Globes, but Murray had also been crowned by the New York critics, the LA critics, the Indie Spirits, and BAFTA, an actual industry group! The only other nominee to be honored by people who’d actually vote for the Oscars was Johnny Depp at the SAG Awards, and many felt the nomination was the win for him. Murray was a beloved comedy icon who many agreed probably just missed on a Supporting Actor nomination for Rushmore, it seemed inevitable that the Academy would reward him and his career. For once, the inevitable did not occur:

Here are the performances, ranked from 5th to 1st:

Best Director, 2003

What do you look for when it comes to “best” directing? I confess, for me it’s about consistency: all the performers, all the “crafts”, even the rhythm of the edit (not always under the aegis of the director, by the way), are on the same page, delivering the same tone. If it’s slow and meditative, you’re not bored, because everyone is doing their job to make that purposeful instead of plodding. If it’s broad and loud, no one is over-the-top but everyone is Stylized, Theatrical. You believe in the world of the film because the director has worked on every element to make it real.

I think that's what everyone was responding to in 2003 when Peter Jackson made his inevitable ascent to the Dolby stage, a consistency that spanned 438 days of shooting, three years of release (and reshoots), a cast and crew of thousands, and beaucoup box office. Everyone knew they were waiting for the third movie to give him his reward:

As you see, he wasn't the only nominee, and nobody turned in a bad movie. Ranking them is more a matter of who you love most than who you like least. Here they are, ranked from 5th to 1st. 

A Third Costner: 2003, Day Three

We're in the thick of Summer '03 now, July 25-September 26. Two Best Picture nominees were released in this peiod, the studio sports drama Seabiscuit and the indie dramedy Lost in Translation. But as I said in 1990 and in 1997, we're here for Kevin Costner, so let's focus on that.

After a gap of only six years, Costner returned to the big screen with Open Range. Based on The Open Range Men, a 1990 novel by prolific Western author Lauran Paine, the film follows a group of men herding cattle across the land who are stopped in their endeavors by the powerful rancher of a nearby town who detests open range cattlemen, and is willing to kill, so, you know, our main duo elect to stay in town and prepare for the inevitable. 

Costner grew up reading the works of Paine, and I think it's interesting that the novel he went with came out the same year as his Dances with Wolves. He cast Duvall, who made his directorial debut with 1997's The Apostle, the same year as Costner's second film, The Postman. I'm sure these vague connections were not thought of at the time, but it always strikes me, the way lives are just always circling around each other, time constantly in conversation with itself.

Filming between June and September of 2002 on a, for Costner, modest budget of $22 million, the film opened to good reviews and good box office. Heck, I remember seeing the TV ads ("You're the one killed our friend?" BANG!) during every commercial break. Why it never managed to take hold in the Oscar race, I'm not sure. Just one of those things, I guess. It would be 21 years before Costner gave us another movie...which we'll discuss another time.

Of the thirteen discussed below, five were brand new to me: American Splendor, Freaky Friday, Matchstick Men, Open Range, and Thirteen. Of the rewatches, Party Monster and Freddy vs. Jason are the only ones I've seen more than twice (more than thrice!).