The Frontrunner Who Wasn't: Best Actor, 2000

As sometimes happens, the biggest news about the Best Actor nominees was the absence of a shoo-in and the presence of a dark horse.

The great film scholar Nick Davis was writing about the Oscars in 2000, and his predictions for the nominees cite Michael Douglas as a lock and probable winner, with Harris tenth. This is, of course, just one voice, but he was not alone: as Inside Oscar 2 relates, "The year's biggest surprise was the failure of Michael Douglas to be nominated," while "Harris especially was a bit of a surprise...he hadn't received any critics awards and hadn't been up for a Golden Globe or SAG award." 

Douglas had also missed at the SAG Awards: remember, Benicio del Toro was up for Lead there (and won), but also nominated was the incredible young find from Billy Elliot, Jamie Bell, who went on to win the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Alas, like Douglas, he missed out with Oscar, and, like Harris, he missed out on the Globes. Not that getting a nomination there is a guarantee: in addition to Douglas, the entire Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy roster was left off the Oscar ballot: no Jim Carrey for Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, no George Clooney for O Brother, Where Art Thou? (he won the Globe!), no John Cusack for High Fidelity, no Robert De Niro for Meet the Parents, and no Mel Gibson for What Women Want!

Who did get in alongside Harris? The obvious locks were Gladiator's Russell Crowe, leading the now Best Picture favorite, and Cast Away's Tom Hanks, who many felt could have been the frontrunner had he not already won twice before. The critical praise was enough to get Before Night Falls' Javier Bardem through, and while he never won any prizes, Quills' Geoffrey Rush was a constant throughout the season. With Douglas gone, it was anyone's guess which one would win, and I'm sure there was a clenching of bettors' sphincters when Marcia Gay Harden picked up her Oscar earlier in the ceremony. Was the Academy suddenly hot for Pollock, as Roger Ebert guessed they might be?

No, as it turns out:

Here's how I'd rank them, if I had a ballot:

Almost Kate's: Best Supporting Actress, 2000

Roger Ebert said that "everybody from the Vegas oddsmakers to the espresso jockey at Starbucks can tell you that Gladiator, Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, and Kate Hudson are at the head of the pack." While he went against that "common wisdom" in some of his final predictions, he held to the impression that "the overwhelming favorite is Kate Hudson." It is a common refrain you read when researching this year: Hudson is the heart of Almost Famous, she glows, she's charming, she's Goldie Hawn's daughter, and wouldn't it be neat if they both won in the same category 31 years apart? 

She was one of four names that kept showing up everywhere: her Almost Famous co-star, who won prizes for both that film and her turn in Wonder Boys; Judi Dench, thought to be the benificiary of Miramax's Chocolat campaign, making it the third of five consecutive Weinstein-backed nominations for the Dame; and Julie Walters, whose chain-smoking ballet mistress in Billy Elliot was an audience favorite. All were nominated alongside Hudson. None were thought to stand a chance, even though, while she was also nominated at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and for Best Lead Actress at the British Academy Awards, the only major "precursor" she won was the Golden Globes. 

But hey, influence and bellwethers change over the years - remember, it used to be "common wisdom" to go with the New York Critics' pick...though that did turn out to be true this year. Alongside the aforementioned quartet was Pollock's Marcia Gay Harden, a name and performance little bandied about after her NYFCC win at the beginning of December. Her "fifth slot" was up for grabs among a number of contenders: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Zhang Ziyi (BAFTA nominee, Indie Spirits winner, LAFCA runner-up), Traffic's Catherine Zeta-Jones (Golden Globe nominee), Quills' Kate Winslet (SAG nominee), maybe even longer shots like Small Time Crooks' Elaine May (winner at the National Society of Film Critics, I'm guessing because they had little opportunity to award her over the years) or Chuck & Buck's Lupe Ontiveros (National Board of Review winner!, Indie Spirits nominee). But the fifth spot was Harden's, with many assuming the nomination was the award for putting in great work in a little-seen film. What a twist - what a thrill:

Had I a ballot, this is how I'd rank them:

It's Awards Season: December 2000 (contd)

The holiday movie season is also known as awards season for a reason: of the nine films reviewed here - all released within a three-week span, mind - five of them went on to be nominated for Oscars, two of them even winning!: