The big Oscar prizefight

RUSSELL BAILLIE looks at the prospects for Oscar nominees in a year which promises plenty of drama - perhaps poetry.

It's hard to know what's weirder. To be genuinely excited about an Oscar race for the first time in years, or to find yourself regarding a certain movie as "ours" and already bracing yourself for possible disappointment come Monday.

It's not like that certain movie is really the little Kiwi battler, either. It's the biggest moneymaker and most nominated of them all. Those numbers would usually make Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring a shoo-in for best picture.

But this year something radical has happened to Oscar.

It has changed from a drama which takes too long to plod to an inevitable ending to a thriller which may keep us in suspense until the final envelope.

Even from this far away, it's been clear that the race has become an unsporting affair - a real prizefight. The campaigns to woo the 5700 or so voters of the Academy have been brasher, bigger and more bitter than ever.

Usually we'd have a pretty good handle on the front-runners from the pre-Oscar awards, but they have just fogged up the crystal ball.

And then there's been that Crowe boy of ours defending his right to inflict poetry on unsuspecting awards show viewers by bailing up the BBC producer who cut out his party piece from the Bafta broadcast.

And just as he went into apologetic damage-control mode over that, it seemed A Beautiful Mind became the subject of a stage-managed backlash over what the film-makers might have selectively left out of their biopic of Nobel laureate mathematician John Nash.

But whether Crowe's ungentlemanly conduct has lessened - or boosted - his chances of a second acting Oscar in a row is open to conjecture. If he loses, the perception will be that was why. If he wins, brace yourself for more poetry.

Likewise, it's hard to see how the furore over what Nash said or did in his frequently mentally unhinged life might actually affect a film that is only loosely based on that life, especially one which seems so preprogrammed to be an Oscar driftnet.

Anyway, with all that, it's going to be more fun than usual to watch the losers' faces as someone else's name is read out.

Of course, the most fun with the Oscars for we mere film-lovers is shouting our picks at the telly just before the winner is read out - and isn't The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring a lot to get out in one breath?

So on this page and next are our picks and best-guess guide to the eight major categories. By Monday night we'll know how wrong we can be.

Best picture

OUR PICK: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (of course).

WHY: The leading nominee with 13 nods has proved the most popular film in the running. Like category winners Gladiator, Titanic, and Braveheart before it, it's an ambitious epic - the most "movie" of all the movies in the category.

Also, it's taken out the top prize in some important peer-voted pre-Oscar awards from the American Film Institute and the Baftas. Its wide range of nominations suggests it's got support right across the Academy's technical guilds, if not its biggest branch - the actors.

Its success has bolstered its Hollywood studio backers New Line out of the doldrums, and the company has mounted a huge pre-Oscar campaign to ensure it has Academy Award bragging rights to go with the box office bonanza.

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "The Fellowship of the Ring - the first of Peter Jackson's three films of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy - has the frequent capacity to make you go: 'Good Lord! Look at that!'

If your optic nerves are getting a delightful battering, even better, perhaps, is the film's capacity to make your heart leap as high as your imagination."

THEN AGAIN: As we've been constantly reminded "fantasy" films don't win best picture (and Gladiator was "reality"?) like when the multi-nominated punters' favourite Star Wars lost to Annie Hall. And maybe the Academy voters are thinking: Let's see how the next two turn out ...

SO IT WILL PROBABLY LOSE OUT TO: A Beautiful Mind

WHY: It got the next-highest number of nominations and it's a serious drama about an old Oscar favourite - the guy who triumphs over his mental problems, complete with a showy central performance.

THE WILDCARD: Gosford Park - American veteran Robert Altman directs an English country manor murder mystery. What could be classier?

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING:Moulin Rouge - it reinvented the musical, without any new tunes, and was released too long ago compared to the competition. In The Bedroom - despite his brilliant debut, director Todd Field isn't nominated in the directing category, indicating the film hasn't got much traction.

Best actor

OUR PICK: Will Smith - Ali

WHY: Smith's portrayal of Muhammad Ali was utterly convincing from the way he looked, the way he talked, and yes, the way he danced like a butterfly and stung like a bee. An Oscar for him effectively honours two people - one of whom is quietly described as "the Greatest'. And just maybe giving the gong to the actor who portrayed the world's most famous Muslim might be a nice thing for America do right now. If he wins, Smith will be the first African-American to win best actor since Sidney Poitier in 1963's Lilies in the Field. Funnily enough, in his acclaimed feature debut Six Degrees of Separation, Smith played a character pretending to be Poitier's son.

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "His portrayal is as vivid and mesmerising as the film around him is oblique. After a while you forget that it's the Fresh Prince dancing gracefully across the ring or putting Ali's motormouth into high gear."

THEN AGAIN: The film was a critical and box-office disappointment and if there is a pro-African-American vote, it might be split between Smith and Denzel Washington.

SO HE WILL PROBABLY LOSE OUT TO: Russell Crowe - A Beautiful Mind

WHY: Because most of the pre-Oscar awards point that way, Crowe won last year for a much different role (Gladiator) and just maybe the Academy members want to hear some live poetry on the night.

THE WILDCARD: Denzel Washington for Training Day. The much-nominated actor played a bad guy - a really bad guy and a cop too - for a change in Training Day. Though the last best actor in a police role was Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971).

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING: Sean Penn for I Am Sam in which he plays an intellectually handicapped man with the mind of a 7-year-old, a performance that has received mixed reviews. Tom Wilkinson for In The Bedroom - the English character actor hasn't the recognition factor of his competitors.

Best actress

OUR PICK: Judi Dench - Iris

WHY: For her heart-rending portrayal of writer Irish Murdoch's latter years. It has been said that Dame Judi only has to turn up at a ceremony to have an award thrust upon her. While that might be true - considering her five or so minutes of screentime as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love won her a supporting actress Oscar - in Iris she's simply devastating.

And if the likely best actor winner plays a mathematical genius during his descent into paranoid schizophrenia, surely an actress playing a literary genius sliding into Alzheimer's makes for a certain symmetry.

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "This film is elevated into something occasionally remarkable by virtue of its extraordinary performances, particularly Dench's heartbreaking depiction of the writer's remorseless descent into the twilight of Alzheimer's disease."

THEN AGAIN: The Academy may be tired of so many venerated Brit thespians turning up every year and grabbing awards.

SO SHE WILL PROBABLY LOSE OUT TO: Tough call really. Sissy Spacek for In The Bedroom or maybe even Nicole Kidman for Moulin Rouge.

WHY: Because Spacek would appear to be the frontrunner from the pre-Oscar build-up while Kidman is the biggest star of the bunch. If there's a split among voters for the actresses in serious dramas, it may allow Kidman to can-can through the pack.

THE WILDCARD: Halle Berry for Monster's Ball. She's not her usual glamorous self in her gritty role opposite Billy Bob Thornton which some American critics have picked as the performance to beat. She also picked up the Screen Actor Guild gong for it .

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING: Renee Zellweger for Bridget Jones's Diary because Oscar rarely smiles upon comedies.

Best director

OUR PICK: Peter Jackson - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

WHY: How's this for confounding logic - the guy who makes the best film is the best director, isn't he? Or how about, of all the contenders, who took the biggest risk? Or who displayed the greatest imagination, got believable performances from actors playing make-believe characters and brought clarity to what on the page is a very complicated story? The Herald didn't name him New Zealander of the Year for 2001 for nothing, you know.

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "Not only does Jackson's opening chapter show that a very fine movie has been made from the first third of an important, seemingly impossible-to-adapt book, it also shows what makes great films great."

THEN AGAIN: He's still a Hollywood outsider with a curious track record from a country that Academy members may have trouble finding. It's possible that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring wins best picture but Jackson doesn't get director, just like Gladiator last year.

SO HE MAY LOSE OUT TO: Ron Howard - A Beautiful Mind.

WHY: Like God, the Academy loves a trier and the director formerly known as Richie Cunningham (of Happy Days fame) has made moneymaking, mediocre mainstream movies in just about every genre. That he's made a film outside his comfort zone might win him the kudos and the votes - and as an ex-actor he might have widespread support among the Academy. He might also be spared from what's been seen as a A Beautiful Mind backlash.

THE WILDCARD: Robert Altman - Gosford Park. The veteran maverick director isn't getting any younger and he's never won despite four previous nominations. Though Altman winning an Oscar would be a bit like Steely Dan winning a Grammy. Which, last year, they did.

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING: The two whose pictures are not in the best category either. That's David Lynch (Mulholland Drive) because it sounds like he's made another David Lynch movie, and Ridley Scott (Black Hawk Down) because even when his films, like last year's Gladiator, are up for best picture, he can't win best director.

Best supporting actor

OUR PICK: Ian McKellen - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

WHY: In a cast where effectively everybody was a supporting role, McKellen imbued the wizard Gandalf his own acting magic, making him a living, breathing character palpably burdened with the fate of Middle-earth. He was a towering presence - and not just because his co-stars were a bit on the short side. Oh, and he keeps saying such nice things about us, doesn't he? He also won the Screen Actor Guild award in the category.

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "McKellen's Gandalf brings a wise elder gravitas to the occasion, making for a wizard-cum-pointy-hatted-action-hero with a human touch - such that, at the end of a series of scenes which deliver the film's greatest cardiac risk, it's hard not to shed a tear as Gandalf slides into the abyss."

THEN AGAIN: He's the only actor from the film to figure in the nominations or the pre-Oscar awards and the fantasy factor may count against him.

SO HE WILL PROBABLY LOSE OUT TO: Jim Broadbent for Iris.

WHY: Because Broadbent (also in Moulin Rouge), who played Irish Murdoch's husband John Bayley, would seem to have the advantage of having a role which straddles the supporting role/leading role divide. He's also figured heavily in pre-Oscar awards.

THE WILDCARD: Ben Kingsley for Sexy Beast because it was so much fun to see the man who played Ghandi turn himself into such a nasty piece of work in this British gangster flick.

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING: Ethan Hawke for Training Day and Jon Voight for Ali.

Best supporting actress

OUR PICK: Jennifer Connelly - A Beautiful Mind

WHY: Because in her role as John Nash's faithful wife Alicia, she was probably the only element that felt real in a film that didn't want to be, and after a career stuck in decorative roles, she seems to be blooming as an actress with an edge.

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "The film's sole reward is Connelly ... , too long marooned in second-rate, eye-candy roles, who makes a fine fist of the thankless part of Nash's wife and gives us a keen sense of how much it costs her to love. With all the noise going on around her, you have to watch closely to catch it, but it's worth the effort."

THEN AGAIN: She's won pretty much everything going this awards season so it might be someone else's turn ...

SO SHE WILL PROBABLY LOSE OUT TO: Well, Jennifer Connelly actually.

WHY: See above.

THE WILDCARD: Kate Winslet for Iris. If the Academy goes for Judi Dench playing Murdoch, the elder, maybe they'll go for the Titanic star who plays her in her younger years.

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING: Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren from Gosford Park.

Best adapted screenplay

OUR PICK: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens

WHY: Apart from trimming off a few of J.R.R. Tolkien's tangential digressions, their script was faithful to the dense and detailed source material, and balanced narrative drive with establishing the characters for the next two parts of the trilogy. Jackson and Walsh are past nominees in this category too, for Heavenly Creatures

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "Let's praise Jackson and his co-writers' script for managing to unfurl the dense story and remain so light on its feet."

THEN AGAIN: Have Academy members read the book and do they know their Frodo from their elbow?

SO IT WILL PROBABLY LOSE OUT TO: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

WHY: Because those who never made it through the book now have the film to thank for telling them the story. It's hard to see a clear front-runner among the other nominees as three of them could be perceived as actor-driven pieces.

THE WILDCARD: Shrek. No, really. It won the Bafta in the same category.

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING: A Beautiful Mind, In The Bedroom, Ghost World.

Best original screenplay

OUR PICK: Memento by Christopher Nolan.

WHY: Because this intriguing noir thriller was utterly unpredictable, care of its ingeniously constructed reverse narrative which never let us get ahead of Guy Pearce's amnesiac character. And because we'd really like to get hold of a copy of the script, rearrange the pages, and figure it all out for ourselves.

OUR REVIEWER SAID: "It's a movie that plays tricks with your character sympathies as well as blindsiding you with twists all the way to its chilling finale. It's one deadly cool brainteaser and simply the best noir in many a year."

THEN AGAIN: It might be seen to be too clever for its own good and voters may have selective amnesia about the movie, which took off near the beginning of last year.

SO IT WILL PROBABLY LOSE OUT TO: Gosford Park by Julian Fellowes.

WHY: Because the script he wrote for Robert Altman interweaves a vast ensemble of characters and delivers a comedy of manners, a country manor whodunnit and a 1930s English period drama into one - upper and lower - class act. The butler did it, probably.

THE WILDCARD: Amelie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant because it's the only foreign-language film nominee to appear in any other category (it's also nominated for art direction, cinematography and sound), so someone up there must like it.

OUTSIDE THE RUNNING: Monster's Ball and The Royal Tenenbaums.

nzherald.co.nz/oscars

Oscar nominees (full list)