Getting to know this year’s Oscar nominees

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced this year’s nominees to the Oscars and this early, there is no doubt in my mind that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King will win for Best Picture when the Oscars are announced on Feb. 29. It has already won a slew of Best Picture trophies, the last one from the Golden Globes and before that the New York Film Critics group. It also got the same honor from film critics of Chicago and Florida. LOTR 3 received the most Oscar nominations this year – 11.

Usually, a Best Picture nomination or award boosts a picture’s box office. Even without the awards, LOTR3 has already grossed $876 million worldwide, making it the No. 6 top grosser of all time. What’s remarkable about these figures is that the movie was released only a month ago. With the Oscar nomination, its figures should get even closer to the top moneymaker of all time, Titanic, still No. 1 with $1.8 billion. LOTR 2 is already in No. 4 with $921 million while LOTR 1 is No. 8 with $860 million. The three movies have a combined gross of $2.6 billion. These are impressive figures are sure to go even higher in months to come.

Other nominees for Best Picture can’t compete with LOTR 3 in the earnings department. The next two are several million dollars away–Seabiscuit with $120 million and Master and Commander with $84.8 million in the US market. Mystic River has $58.5 million while Lost in Translation has grossed $33.7 million. (That’s not bad considering it was made for only $4 million.) With the Oscar nominations, expect these films to earn more.

In the Best Actor category, two are Oscar veterans. Ben Kingsley (House of Fog and Sand) won the Oscar for his portrayal of Gandhi in 1983. (Incidentally, the years I use in this article are the years they won or got nominated, not the year the films were produced.) He has two previous nominations for Best Supporting Actor: Bugsy (1992) and Sexy Beast (2002). Sean Penn, on the other hand, has never won an Oscar but has garnered three nominations, all for Best Actor: I Am Law (2002), Sweet and Lowdown (2000) and Dead Man Walking (1996). Jude Law (Cold Mountain) has been nominated in the same category for The Talented Mr. Ripley (2000).

Surprisingly, this is only the first nominations for the versatile Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean). Ditto for Bill Murray (Lost in Translation) who, at 60, is the oldest nominee in the group.

In the Best Actress field, New Zealander Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) has established a record as the youngest actress ever to be nominated in a lead role. She is only 13. She plays a New Zealand girl who goes against tradition to become the head of a Maori tribe. The youngest actor to get a nomination in the supporting actor category is Justin Henry, for Kramer vs Kramer (1980) at the age of eight while Tatum O’Neal is the youngest to win an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress) for Paper Moon when she was 10. Another young winner was Ana Paquin, who was 12 when she won Best Supporting Actress award for The Piano.

On the other hand, Diane Keaton, 58 is the oldest nominee for Something’s Gotta Give where she plays the object of affection of both Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves. She has been nominated thrice before and won for Best Actress in Annie Hall in 1978. Her previous nominations were for Reds (1982) and Marvin’s Room (1997).

Diane is the sentimental favorite in this category (she already won in the Golden Globes) but Charlize Theron may yet bring home the Oscar for her portrayal of a serial killer in Monster. This is her first nomination. Another first-timer is Naomi Watts for 21 Grams while Samantha Morton (In America was nominated before for best actress in Sweet and Lowdown (2000).

There was a year in the Oscars when all nominees in this category were Brits. This year’s batch is multi-cultural. Keisha is from New Zealand, Charlize from South Africa, Samantha and Naomi from the UK and Diane is the only American.

For Best Supporting Actor, Benicio del Toro is the only previous winner in this category. He won for Traffic, a movie about drug trafficking. The film for which he is nominated is called 21 Grams but has nothing to do with the illegal substance. Tim Robbins has been nominated before but in the directing category for Dead Man Walking. Despite his record of fine performances, this is only his first acting nomination. Other nominees are all first-timers – Alec Baldwin (The Cooler), Djimoun Hounsou (In America), West African and Tim and Alec, American.

The Best Supporting Actress field is dominated by Americans: Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April), Marcia Gay Harden (Mystic River), Holly Hunter (Thirteen), Renee Zellweger (Cold Mountain). The fifth, Shohreh Aghdasloo (House of Sand and Fog) is from Iran.

Two have already won the Oscar. Holly snagged the Best Actress statuette for The Piano in 1994, the same year she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Firm. She was also nominated for Best Actress in Broadcast News (1988). Renee, on the other hand, has received three nominations in the last three years. Aside from Cold Mountain she was nominated for Best Actress in 2003 for Chicago and in 2002 for Bridget Jones’s Diary. Marcia was nomianted in this category in 2001 for Pollock.

In the directing category, LOTR 3’s Peter Jackson is the strongest contender. He has already won for Best Director at the Golden Globes. His closest rival is Clint Eastwood, nominee for Mystic River. Clint won for The Unforgiven both as director and lead actor. At 73, the actor has been working more and more behind the cameras in the last few years.

A surprise choice in this category is Fernando Meirelles, director of City of God, a Brazilian film brought to the US by Miramax Films. Another newcomer in this field is Sofia Coppola, daughter of the famous director, nominated for writing and directing Lost in Translation. This is vindication for Sofia, who was savaged by the critics for her performance in Godfather 3.

The last nominee is Peter Weir (Master and Commander). He was nominated for Best Director in Witness (1986), Dead Poets Society (1990) and The Truman Show (1999). The Australian has never won an Oscar.

Competition for Best Director is also international in scope. Peter is Australian, Fernando, Brazilian, Peter, New Zealander and Sofia and Clint, Americans. See you at the Oscars!

(Data culled from the Internet Movie Database and other sources.)