THE SCREENING ROOM

By Kelley Lyne

With the 2004 Golden Globe Awards in the can and the 2004 Academy Awards on the way, let’s have a little fun dissecting, shall we? The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King recently cleaned up with four Globe wins including Best Film and Best Director. Meanwhile, the Civil War drama Cold Mountain had a frosty reception at the Globes with Renee Zellweger (Chicago, Jerry Maguire) bringing home its only major award for Best Supporting Actress out of its possible eight nominations. Bill Murray (Stripes, Rushmore) garnered the Best Comedy/Musical actor for the indie hit Lost in Translation and beauty Charlize Theron (Bagger Vance, Sweet November) was rewarded for hitting herself with an ugly stick in Monster, the story of executed serial killer Aileen Wournos.

On the flip side of the awards coin, the just released 76 Annual Academy Awards nominations were full of surprises in all categories. The biggest diss went to Cold Mountain with a paltry three noms, and the big wins went to all the little independent films that could.

Well earned nominations went to Keisha Castle-Hughes for her riveting performance in Whalerider, Alec Baldwin for The Cooler, Holly Hunter for Thirteen, Samantha Morton for In America and Naomi Watts for 21 Grams. Surely this trend sends a strong message to all the suits at the major studis - get your act together and put out some quality product or get in the unemployment line with everyone else!

Note to the Academy - please, please, please vote Johnny Depp as your pick for Best Actor. His pesky pirate performance in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl carried the entire film in case you hadn’t noticed.

Interesting note - the powers that be with a nudge from the brass at ABC to be sure, have moved up the Oscars up by a whole month. Usually seen in the last week of March, this year’s ceremony will be broadcast on Sunday, February 29 at 5 p.m. Not surprisingly, this is just in time to clean up on the last day of television’s February “sweeps” period. (That’s one of the four months during the year that they publish the Nielson ratings). Can you say, “Let’s squeeze as much money from advertisers as humanly possible?”

COLD MOUNTAIN *** Rated R Cold Mountain is a Civil War epic tale of two people who come together briefly and take the viewer through their journey to reunite after years of individual hardships trying to survive one of the darkest periods in our nation’s history. Jude Law (A.I., The Talented Mr. Ripley) and Nicole Kidman (The Hours, Birthday Girl) put in top notch performances as the would-be lovers, and Renee Zellweger, along with the talented Philip Seymour Hoffman (Boogie Nights, Happiness) provide some much appreciated comic relief. Much is to be learned from the film, whose depiction of the far-reaching effects the war had on ordinary people living in remote areas such as Cold Mountain personalizes the experience for the moviegoer.

Director Anthony Minghella certainly can’t be accused of making ugly product. Case in point his previous films The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley. They ooze beauty - both cinematically in scenery and their stars. Let’s face it, Nicole Kidman wouldn’t spend most of a year filming in Romania for just anybody now would she? Bottom Line - Cold Mountain earns your cold hard cash.

BIG FISH **Rated PG-13 Surreal director Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands) has done himself and his audiences a disservice with his latest effort Big Fish. The problem lies in the fact that Burton uses the larger than life stories his lead character tells as the gimmick that allows him to indulge his every cinematic fantasy. Veteran thespian Albert Finney (Traffic, Erin Brockovich), plays Edward Bloom, a dying man whose estranged son comes home to find out once and for all if the tall tales he’s heard told a million times by his dad are true. Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge) plays the young Edward in flashbacks. Not exactly a solid story foundation, Big Fish is more like a string of vignettes that never really adds up to a satisfying tome.
Bottom line - Don’t swim out of your way to see this one.

BACK TO TOP